Retribution Quotes

• Disease is the retribution of outraged Nature.

  Hosea Ballou

  Nature, Health, Medicine

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• If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.

  Immanuel Kant

  Justice, Murder, Miserable

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• Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Patience, Justice, Waiting

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.697, Library of America

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• To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Mean, Government, Order

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

  John Locke

  Men, Blood, Criminal Mind

  John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.196

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• Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.

  Eric Hoffer

  Mean, Done, Vengeance

  "Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'" by Eric Hoffer, The New York Times Magazine (p. 57), April 25, 1971.

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• Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved.

  Pierre Corneille

  Heaven, Wicked, Pay

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• The forces of retribution are always listening. They never sleep.

  Meg Greenfield

  Sleep, Listening, Talking Too Much

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• Heaven never defaults. The wicked are sure of their wages, sooner or later.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Heaven, Wicked, Wages

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• You may do as you wish without fear of retribution. It may serve you, however, to be aware of consequences. Consequences are results. Natural outcomes. These are not at all the same as retributions, or punishments. Outcomes are simply that. They are what results from the natural application of natural laws. They are that which occurs, quite predictably, as a consequence of what has occurred.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Law, Punishment, Wish

  "Conversations With God: Book One". Book by Neale Donald Walsch, January 22, 2009.

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• Justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar.

  Rod Serling

  Years, Justice, Calendars

  "Fictional character: Narrator". TV Series "The Twilight Zone" ("Execution", 1960), www.imdb.com. 1959–1964.

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• There is such a thing as tempting the gods. Talking too much, too soon and with too much self-satisfaction has always seemed to me a sure way to court disaster. The forces of retribution are always listening. They never sleep.

  Meg Greenfield

  Sleep, Self, Talking

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• there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible.

  Miles Franklin

  Law, Invisible, Indirect

  Miles Franklin (2014). “Some Everyday Folk and Dawn”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

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• No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.

  Sulla

  Thankful, Revenge, Enemy

  Epitaph he made for himself. "Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age". Book by Will Durant, 2001.

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• The mills of God grind slowly.

  Lord Acton

  Grind, Exactness, Mills

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• God gives each his due at the time allotted.

  Euripides

  Giving, Dues

  Euripides (2012). “Ten Plays by Euripides”, p.267, Bantam Classics

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• The essence of justice is mercy. Making a child suffer for wrong-doing is merciful to the child. There is no mercy in letting the child have its own will, plunging headlong to destruction with the bits in its mouth. There is no mercy to society nor to the criminal if the wrong is not repressed and the right vindicated. We injure the culprit who comes up to take his proper doom at the bar of justice, if we do not make him feel that he has done a wrong thing. We may deliver his body from the prison, but not at the expense of justice nor to his own injury.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Children, Essence, Justice

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• To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Faces, Crime, Left Alone

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2012). “My Complete Poetical Works (Annotated Edition)”, p.820, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.

  Friedrich von Logau

  Grind, Exactness, Mills

  Sinnegedichte no. 3224 (1654) (translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

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• There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Satisfaction, Vengeance, Realizing

  Arthur Conan Doyle (2003). “A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four”, p.82, Courier Corporation

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• The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Words Of Wisdom, Enemy, Kind

  Marcus Aurelius (2009). “Meditations”, p.35, Everyman's Library

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• But grant the wrath of Heaven be great, 'tis slow.
  [Lat., Ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est.]

  Juvenal

  Wrath, Heaven, Ira

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• The ways of the gods are long, but in the end they are not without strength.

  Euripides

  Long, Way, Ends

  "Ion". I, 1615,

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• A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Revenge, Done, Failing

  Edgar Allan Poe (2004). “The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.185, Wordsworth Editions

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• Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.

  Jeremy Collier

  Body, Leisure, Passing

  Jeremy Collier (1720). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: Part III. ... By Jeremy Collier, M.A.”, p.31

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