Punishment Quotes

• A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.

  B. F. Skinner

  Way, Psychological, Given

  "Beyond Freedom and Dignity". Book by B. F. Skinner, 1972.

  360 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you're going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way.

  Jayne Mansfield

  Way, Pin Up Girl, Bigs

  "On Being Blonde : Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes". Book by Paula Munier, 2004.

  100 Copy quote

  Show source

• In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Inspiring, Wisdom, Nature

  'Some Reasons Why' (1881) pt. 8 'The New Testament' in 'The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll' (1915) vol. 2, p. 315

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Good Night, Dream

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.296, OUP Oxford

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

  Plato

  Wise, Plato, Men

  34 Copy quote

• Let the punishment be equal with the offence.
  [Lat., Noxiae poena par esto.]

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Equal, Offence

  8 Copy quote

• It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.

  Margaret Mead

  Fear, Fog, Religion

  42 Copy quote

• Every sin brings its punishment with it.

  George Herbert

  Sin

  George Herbert, Joseph Hall (1855). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: And The Satires and Psalms of Bishop Hall”, p.317

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Punishment is justice for the unjust.

  Saint Augustine

  Philosophical, Justice, Catholic

  19 Copy quote

• If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.

  Thomas Szasz

  Order, Law, Criminals

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2002). “The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience”, p.36, Syracuse University Press

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

  John Ruskin

  Hands, Prevention, Lasts

  "Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and Criminal Classes". Book by John Ruskin, 1868.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let the punishment be proportionate to the offense.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Offense

  6 Copy quote

• Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Trust, Forgiveness, Powerful

  1883-92 Also sprach Zarathustra ( Thus Spake Zarathustra) (translated by R J Hollingdale).

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  People, Feelings, Resistance

  55 Copy quote

• I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again.

  Bill Maher

  Thinking, Justice, Advice

  13 Copy quote

• In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

  Michel Foucault

  Different, Function, Crime And Punishment

  Michel Foucault (2012). “Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison”, p.303, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Taken, Men, Suffering

  "De Officiis". Treatise by Marcus Tullius Cicero, I. 23., 44 B.C..

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Punishment - The justice that the guilty deal out to those that are caught.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Justice, Guilt, Caught

  Elbert Hubbard, Bert Hubbard (1923). “Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

  Marquis de Sade

  Eye, Humanity, Doe

  Sade (marquis de) (1965). “Selected letters”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Inspirational, Sad, Pain

  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “The 10 Greatest Books of All Time”, p.262, Google Publishing

  560 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not believe in a God who would set up rules and commandments only to wait for us to fail so He could punish us. I believe in a Heavenly Father who is loving and caring and who rejoices in our every effort to stand tall and walk toward Him. Even when we stumble, He urges us not to be discouraged-never to give up or flee our allotted field of service-but to take courage, find our faith, and keep trying.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Love, God, Faith

  131 Copy quote

• Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

  George Eliot

  Hands, Wave, Pity

  George Eliot (1869). “Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.311

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.

  Daniel Handler

  Criminals, Crime, Feeding

  6 Copy quote

• Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.

  Orrin Hatch

  Death, Political, Politics

  "The Cassell Dictionary of Regrettable Quotations". Book by David Milsted, 1999.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.

  Haim Ginott

  Parenting, Opposites, Contrary

  79 Copy quote