“Against men habituated to lawless force, violent punishment failed to bring the violence under control.”

— Barbara W. Tuchman, book A Distant Mirror

Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 273

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Barbara W. Tuchman45

American historian and author 1912–1989

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Context: We are told: "It is a universal truth, that he that would excite a rebellion, is at heart as great a tyrant as ever wielded the iron rod of oppression." Be it so. We are not exciting a rebellion. Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms, against usurpation and lawless violence, is not rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion. … Remember the frank Veteran acknowledges, that "the word rebel is a convertible term."

“War", Philip had announced, "was being declared against the Persians on behalf of the Greeks, to punish the barbarians for their lawless treatment of the old Greek temples.”

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“The spirit ot lawlessness grows with what it feeds on and when mobs with impunity lynch criminals for one crime, they are certain to begin to lynch real or alleged criminals for other causes. In the recent cases of lynching over three-fourths were not for rape at all, but for murder, attempted murder and even less heinous offenses. Moreover, the history of these recent cases shows the awful fact that when the minds of men are habituated to the use of torture by lawless bodies to avenge crimes of a peculiarly revolting description, other lawless bodies will use torture in order to punish crimes of an ordinary type.”

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Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html <br class="br">Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s <br class="br">Context: Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...

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July 28, 1788, p. 107.
North Carolina's Debates, in Convention, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution (1787)

“Against men habituated to lawless force, violent punishment failed to bring the violence under control.”

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Barbara W. Tuchman45

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