Quotes about punishment (1141 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Education

“Every person who is tempted to go astray, does not deserve punishment.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Personality

“I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

Genghis Khan (1162–1227) founder and first emperor of the Mongol Empire

As quoted in Ta'Rikh-i-Jahan Gusha [History of the World Conqueror] by 'Ala-ad-Din 'Ata-Malik Juvaini (ca. 1252-1260), translated by J.A. Boyle (1958), p. 105
Context: O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.

God

“I guess living without love, without experiencing it or being able to give it is pretty strong punishment.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Strong , Love , Making love

“Such prizes and punishments are, if I may be allowed the expression, the bench of the soul, the instrument of slavery for the spirit.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in 'The Children's Houses' with Additions and Revisions by the Author

Soul

“We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them. Our Air Force’s military work in Syria must not simply be continued. It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that vengeance is inevitable.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2015-11-17, vowing to retaliate against the Islamic militants responsible for the destruction of a Russian airliner over the Sinai on October 31, 2015. Tribune India, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/russians-up-strikes-in-french-fury/159736.html (17 November 2015)
2011 - 2015

Way , Understanding

“I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished”

Thomas More book Utopia

Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 1 : Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth
Context: I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much provokes them to cruelty.

Death , Law , Thinking

“Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists‎ (2007) by James Geary

Men , Children , Education

“No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection, until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen, so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? The dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent, whose crime has not been proved.”

Cesare Beccaria book On Crimes and Punishments

On Crimes and Punishments (1764)

Law , Suffering

“Do not hurry over punishments and do not be pleased and do not be proud of your power to punish.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 53: An order to Malik Al-Ashtar

“When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Source: An Ideal Husband

God

“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

School , Way , Learning

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Hurtful , Suffering , Help , Personality

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Wisdom , Justice , Law , Idea

“The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment..

[]”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays

Death , People , Color , Hell

“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)

Truth , Evil , Personality , Patience

“A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but…who knowingly act wrongly… [B]esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173

Understanding , Nature , Future , Animals

“When we understand this we see clearly that the subject round which the alternative senses play must be twofold. And we must therefore consider the subject of this work [the Divine Comedy] as literally understood, and then its subject as allegorically intended. The subject of the whole work, then, taken in the literal sense only is "the state of souls after death" without qualification, for the whole progress of the work hinges on it and about it. Whereas if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is "man as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of the freedom of his choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice."”
Hiis visis, manifestum est quod duplex oportet esse subiectum circa quod currant alterni sensus. Et ideo videndum est de subiecto huius operis, prout ad litteram accipitur; deinde de subiecto, prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo subiectum totius operis, litteraliter tantum accepti, status animarum post mortem simpliciter sumptus. Nam de illo et circa illum totius operis versatur processus. Si vero accipiatur opus allegorice, subiectum est homo, prout merendo et demerendo per arbitrii libertatem iustitie premiandi et puniendi obnoxius est.

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian poet

Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 23–25), as translated by Charles Singleton in his essay "Two Kinds of Allegory" published in Dante Studies 1 (Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 87.
Epistolae (Letters)

Death , Justice , Exercises , Soul

“It's so long ago now. Even I don't know the truth. If I had ever known it, I have long forgotten it. All I know is that I took the blame as a good CO should have been and was punished accordingly.”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Peiper on the Malmedy massacre, excerpted from A Traveler's Guide to the Battle for the German Frontier by Charles Whiting.

Truth

“Through systematic terror, through indoctrination, through systematic manipulation of stimulus, reward, and punishment, we can today break man and convert him into brute animal… The first step toward survival is therefore to make government legitimate again by attempting to deprive it of these powers… by international action to ban such powers.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959), p. 258

Animals

“[…] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free.”

Dimitris Lyacos (1966) Greek writer

Source: Poena Damni Z213: Exit, p. 88, Shoestring Press, 2010.

Death , Fear , Angels , Soul

“On Monday the 9th of the first Jumada, we got out of the suburbs of Agra, on our journey (safar) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point…On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say: 'Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of Allah, and that truth which hath been revealed? Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness…
Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, these are the unbelievers, the wicked.'In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this…. Previous to the rising in Hindustan of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shahansha's (i. e. Babur's) Khalifate the authority of that execrated pagan (Sanga) - at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend - was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sultan of Delhi, the Sultan of Gujarat and the Sultan of Mandu, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans…
Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though enchained, to that perverse one (Sanga); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten, uplifted misery-freighted standards which denounce unto them excruciating punishment, had many dependents, and troops, and wide-extended lands…. The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjal who to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind, and setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul, they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, Fight against infidels and hypocrites…
The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islam, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition: they shall be thrown to bum therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be. Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mumin Ataka and Rustam Turkman betook themselves to the rear of the host of darkened pagans…
At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers, and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from Allah, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tiding to true believers. Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

Men , Fate , War , Truth

“I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in his love, only his punishment. Faith. That, I felt, was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with one's head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part One
No Longer Human

Love , God , Faith , Justice

“Too frequent rewards indicate that the general is at the end of his resources; too frequent punishments that he is in acute distress.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Source: The Art of War, Chapter IX · Movement and Development of Troops

“The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances.”
Consuesse enim deos immortales, quo gravius homines ex commutatione rerum doleant, quos pro scelere eorum ulcisci velint, his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere.

Julius Caesar book Commentarii de Bello Gallico

Book I, Ch. 14, translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn
De Bello Gallico

God , Suffering , Personality

“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 (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: 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.
Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

World , Way

“There was purification in punishment. Not 'Forgive us our sins,' but 'Smite us for our iniquities' should be the prayer of a man to a most just God.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

God , Forgiveness

“God always punishes us for what we can't imagine.”

Stephen King book Duma Key

Source: Duma Key

God , Imagination

“You make the decision: Whom did God punish?”

Louis Sachar book Holes

Source: Holes

God , Decision

“At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Pain , Children , Hurt

“But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment
Context: This, then, is how one must imagine the punitive city. At the crossroads, in the gardens, at the side of roads being repaired or bridges built, in workshops open to all, in the depths of mines that may be visited, will be hundreds of tiny theatres of punishment. Each crime will have its law; each criminal his punishment. It will be a visible punishment, a punishment that tells all, that explains, justifies itself, convicts: placards, different-coloured caps bearing inscriptions, posters, symbols, texts read or printed, tirelessly repeat the code. Scenery, perspectives, optical effects, trompe-l’œil sometimes magnify the scene, making it more fearful than it is, but also clearer. From where the public is sitting, it is possible to believe in the existence of certain cruelties which, in fact, do not take place. But the essential point, in all these real or magnified severities, is that they should all, according to a strict economy, teach a lesson: that each punishment should be a fable. And that, in counterpoint with all the direct examples of virtue, one may at each moment encounter, as a living spectacle, the misfortunes of vice. Around each of these moral ‘representations’, schoolchildren will gather with their masters and adults will learn what lessons to teach their offspring. The great terrifying ritual of the public execution gives way, day after day, street after street, to this serious theatre, with its multifarious and persuasive scenes. And popular memory will reproduce in rumour the austere discourse of the law. But perhaps it will be necessary, above these innumerable spectacles and narratives, to place the major sign of punishment for the most terrible of crimes: the keystone of the penal edifice.

Personality

“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us…. More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Children , Parent , Affliction

“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 (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in American Quotations (1992) by Gorton Carruth and Eugene H. Ehrlich, p. 149
1990s

Fear , Behavior , Question

“What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?”

Albert Camus book Reflections on the Guillotine

Reflections on the Guillotine (1957)

Men , Madness

“In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

God , Children , Age , World

“When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you to trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

41e–42a
Plato, Apology

Justice , Thinking

“My social conscience is fairly limited in a lot of ways; there's not much I'm angry about that doesn't affect me quite directly. But the prison system- not particularly capital punishment- but the penal system as it is, and the whole apparatus of judgement, people deciding on other people's fates… that does irritate, and upset me quite a lot. What angers me about the system goes beyond the unreliability of "proof"… it's that the way criminals are dealt with has nothing to do with rehabilitation and readjusting people who've stepped outside society's norms. The same goes for mental institutions and so forth. But it's also the very idea of someone being judged "criminal" or "insane" because they're unable to fit into what a corrupt society considers "social" or "sociable."”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Politics, society and humanity

Fate , People , Way , Idea

“And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censoring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

39c–d
Plato, Apology

Death , Men , Way , Thinking

“It is not a good symptom that hanging should still be the accepted form of capital punishment in this country. Hanging is a barbarous, inefficient way of killing anybody, and at least one fact about it—quite widely known, I believe—is so obscene as to be almost unprintable.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (15 November 1946) http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

Way , Country

“The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Revenge is Sour" http://orwell.ru/library/articles/revenge/english/e_revso, Tribune (9 November 1945)

Dreams , Idea , Revenge , Sense

“I have always disbelieved that Sicilian saying about revenge being a dish best served cold. I feel that--don't you?--when I see blinking, quivering octogenarian Nazi war criminals being led away in chains. Why not then? It's too late now. I want to see them taken back in time and punished then… Blame, certainly, is a dish only edible when served fresh and warm. Old blames, grudges and scores congeal and curdle and cause the most terrible indigestion.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)

War , Feeling , Revenge , Time

“All around us there are other women, seemingly not hurt, making small talk, acting normal, which means happy, not discontent, certainly not devastated. Girls are still being socialised not to identify with - feel empathy for - other females: she got hurt because she did x, y, z - I didn’t, so I didn’t get hurt; she’s at fault, I’m not; the punishment fits her crime; blame her, exonerate him. This continuing, culturally applauded socialisation of women not to empathize with other women is a malignant part of the culture of men, dead white ones or not. Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men. Women are trash when women let men do what men want Women are shrews or puritans when we do not.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.

Women , Men , Sadness , Justice

“It seems that sin is geographical. From this conclusion, it is only a small step to the further conclusion that the notion of "sin" is illusory, and that the cruelty habitually practised in punishing it is unnecessary.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 283
Attributed from posthumous publications

“It is often said that the Arabs fled, that they left the country voluntarily, and that they therefore bear the responsibility for losing their property and their land. It is true that in history there are some instances — in Rome and in France during the Revolutions when enemies of the state were proscribed and their property confiscated. But in general international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the [European] Jews. Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscation of property and by being barred from returning to the land on which a people's forefathers have lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse. … I believe that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgement of the obligation of the State towards the Arabs — not to use it as a bargaining point, but to acknowledge the complete moral obligation of the Israeli State to its former inhabitants of Palestine.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Jewish Newsletter [New York] (19 May 1959); quoted in Prophets in Babylon (1980) by Marion Woolfson, p. 13

People , World , Law , History

“It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-ﬁghting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (24 March 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/wif/
As I Please (1943–1947)

Women , Youth , Dogs

“If I do not submit to the conventions of society, if in my dress I do not conform to the customs observed in my country and in my class, the ridicule I provoke, the social isolation in which I am kept, produce, although in an attenuated form, the same effects as punishment in the strict sense of the word.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Source: Rules of Sociological Method, 1895, p. 3

Sense , Country

“I am not part of the human race. Humanity has rejected me. The females of the human species have never wanted to mate with me, so how could I possibly consider myself part of humanity? Humanity has never accepted me among them, and now I know why. I am more than human. I am superior to them all. I am Elliot Rodger… Magnificent, glorious, supreme, eminent… Divine! I am the closest thing there is to a living god. Humanity is a disgusting, depraved, and evil species. It is my purpose to punish them all. I will purify the world of everything that is wrong with it. On the Day of Retribution, I will truly be a powerful god, punishing everyone I deem to be impure and depraved.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Final Days

God , World , Evil , Parting

“One would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally.”

John Fortescue (1394–1476) Chief Justice of the King's Bench of England

De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Death , Suffering , Personality

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval. The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

People , Feeling , Literature , Question

“About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

In A Man Without a Country (2005) p. 80–81 Vonnegut makes a very similar statement:
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Context: About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"
I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."

Parting , Personality , Dead

“There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Source: Antigone, Line 1347, closing lines

Wisdom , Men , God , Age

“When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened.”

Tacitus book Annals

Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.
Book IV, 35.
Annals (117)

Men

“In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book The Social Contract

Source: The Social Contract

“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 book Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Source: Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972).

Way , Learning , Personality

“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Youth

“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant: Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Source: Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

“I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Moral Problem"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Context: There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

Feeling , Personality

“I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Sleep , Housing

“Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It’s lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work.”
-Skulduggery”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Dying of the Light

“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People , Fear , Hope

“Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches — and in punishment there is so much that is festive!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 2, Section 6
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Source: On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo

History , Parting

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”

Marshall B. Rosenberg (1934–2015) American psychologist

Source: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Pain , People

“It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

World

“There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. Anest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming… home.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

Source: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Home

“I wish I hadn't cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out.
I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Way , Tear

“The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.”

V.S. Naipaul book In a Free State

Source: In a Free State (1971)

“Punishment is now unfashionable… because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Men

“How long does it have to go on? This punishment? Haven't I done time enough, haven't I served my term? can't I apply for a-pardon?”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Time

“An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.”

Irwin Shaw (1913–1984) American politician

World , Parting

“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Law , Personality

“He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Chi non punisce il male comanda che si faccia.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.

Evil

“She said this in the same way you might say Fields of Punishment or Hades's gym shorts.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Way

“In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

World , Failure , Strong , Success

“The story of how anti-Hindu laws were enacted… is long. In summary form, it consists of 1) banishing Brahmins on pain of being made prisoners on the galleys; 2) confiscating the properties of those Hindus who sent their families to neighbouring lands for fear of conversion; 3) prohibiting the performance of Hindu rites and ceremonies; 4) banning Hindu priests and preachers from doing their religious duties; 5) compelling Hindus to attend church services and listen to Christian doctrines; 6) depriving Hindus of their traditional rights and privileges in village communities; 7) forcing the baptism of Hindu orphans; and 8) ordering Hindus not to ride on horseback or in palanquins. The laws were so designed as to humiliate the Hindus in every conceivable manner… Missionary records, however, refer to many famous Hindu temples being converted into churches at these places… Even private temples in Hindu homes were prohibited and “transgressors” were severely punished…”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission. 1985.

Pain , Fear , Family , Law

“As these people are not convicted of forfeiting freedom, they have still a natural, perfect right to it; and the Governments whenever they come should, in justice set them free, and punish those who hold them in slavery.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

People , Justice , Nature , Freedom

“When the gods would punish us, they answer our prayers.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

Del Rey p. 92
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

God

“How just, how suitable to our crime is the punishment with which Providence threatens us? We have enslaved multitudes, and shed much innocent blood in doing it; and now are threatened with the same. And while other evils are confessed, and bewailed, why not this especially, and publicly; than which no other vice, if all others, has brought so much guilt on the land?”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

Evil

“Prabhupada: Yes. That is Tulasi dasa’s remark. So in many passages of his poetry he has not done very justice to woman. And another poetry, he writes, dhol gunar sudra nari. Dhol gunar sudra nari ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. (?) Dhol gunar pasu sudra nari, ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Dhol, dhol means drum, mrdanga. Gunar, gunar means… What is called English? A fool, fool. Illiterate fool, what is one word?
Brahmananda: Buffoon?
Prabhupada: Maybe buffoon. Buffoon is sometimes troublesome. But gunar means he doesn’t understand very nicely.
Brahmananda: Dullard.
Prabhupada: Dull, dull. Dhol gunar, dhol means drum and gunar means dull. Sudra, and the laborer class. Three. Dhol, gunar, sudra, and pasu, household animals, just like cows, dogs.
Brahmananda: Pet.
Prabhupada: Pet, like that. Dhol gunar sudra pasu and nari. Nari means woman. (laughs) Just see. He has classified the nari amongst these class, dhol, gunar, sudra, pasu, nari. Ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Sasan ke adhikari means all these are subjected for punishment. And what about the guest?
Govinda dasi: Oh, the guest? It’s coming.
Prabhupada: So sasan ke adhikari means they should be punished. (laughs) Punished means, just like dhol, when the, I mean to say, sound is not very hard, dag-dag, if you beat it on the border, then it comes to be nice tune. Similarly, pasu, animals, if you request, “My dear dog, please do not go there.” Hut! (laughter) “No, my dear dog.” Hut! This is the way.(?) Similarly, woman. If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. So in India still, in villages, whenever there is some quarrel between husband wife, the husband beats and she is tamed. (laughs) In civilized society, “Oh, you have done this?” Immediately some criminal case. But in uncivilized society they don’t care for court or civilized way of…”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Conversation, New York, April 12, 1969 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/conversations/1969/apr/new_york/april/12/1969?d=1
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Violence and Dictatorship

Justice , Dogs , Fools , Way

“But lo! now they that have run into this fury have done more grievously by themselves. For it is not the same thing to change into the nature of women, as to continue a man and yet to have become a woman; or rather neither this nor that. But if you would know the enormity of the evil from other grounds, ask on what account the lawgivers punish them that make men eunuchs, and you will see that it is absolutely for no other reason than because they mutilate nature. And yet the injustice they do is nothing to this. For there have been those that were mutilated and were in many cases useful after their mutilation. But nothing can there be more worthless than a man who has pandered himself. For not the soul only, but the body also of one who has been so treated, is disgraced, and deserves to be driven out everywhere. How many hells shall be enough for such? But if you scoff at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homily on Romans IV http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210204.htm

Women , Men , Soul , Hell

“My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred. The doctrine of surplus value, which is supposed to demonstrate the exploitation of wage-earners under capitalism, is arrived at: (a) by surreptitiously accepting Malthus's doctrine of population, which Marx and all his disciples explicitly repudiate; (b) by applying Ricardo's theory of value to wages, but not to the prices of manufactured articles. He is entirely satisfied with the result, not because it is in accordance with the facts or because it is logically coherent, but because it is calculated to rouse fury in wage-earners. Marx's doctrine that all historical events have been motivated by class conflicts is a rash and untrue extension to world history of certain features prominent in England and France a hundred years ago. His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology. His theoretical errors, however, would not have mattered so much but for the fact that, like Tertullian and Carlyle, his chief desire was to see his enemies punished, and he cared little what happened to his friends in the process.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 211

World , Error , History , Motivation

“Those who worship God for the hope of gaining, they’re not real worshippers, they’re merchants. Those who worship God out of fear (of punishment), they’re slaves. And those who worship God to be grateful towards their creator, they are the free people, and their worship is a real one.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 117
Religious-based Quotes

God , People , Fear , Hope

“According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment.”

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) Egyptian writer

Naguib Mahfouz in: Gary Dexter (2010) Poisoned Pens: Literary Invective Form Amis to Zola. p. 226

“The corporate manager who achieves success by honest efficiency in giving the best service to the public should be favored because we all beneﬁt by his efficiency. […] he should be helped by the Government because his success is good for the National welfare. But a man who, grasps and holds business power by breaking the industrial efficiency of others, who wins success by methods which are against‘ the public interest and degrading to the public morals, should not be permitted to ‘ exercise such power. Instead of punishing him by a long and doubtful process of the law after the wrong has been com- mitted, there should be such effective Government regulation as to check the evil tendencies at the moment that they start do develop.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Law , Exercises , Business , Evil

“Hear oh hear, if my prayer be worthy and such as you yourself might whisper to my frenzy. Those I begot (no matter in what bed) did not try to guide me, bereft of sight and sceptre, or sway my grieving with words. Nay behold (ah agony!), in their pride, kings this while by my calamity, they even mock my darkness, impatient of their father's groans. Even to them am I unclean? And does the sire of the gods see it and do naught? Do you at least, my rightful champion, come hither and range all my progeny for punishment. Put on your head this gore-soaked diadem that I tore off with my bloody nails. Spurred by a father's prayers, go against the brothers, go between them, let steel make partnership of blood fly asunder. Queen of Tartarus' pit, grant the wickedness I would fain see.”
Exaudi, si digna precor quaeque ipsa furenti subiceres. orbum visu regnisque carentem non regere aut dictis maerentem flectere adorti, quos genui quocumque toro; quin ecce superbi —pro dolor!—et nostro jamdudum funere reges insultant tenebris gemitusque odere paternos. hisne etiam funestus ego? et videt ista deorum ignavus genitor? tu saltem debita vindex huc ades et totos in poenam ordire nepotes. indue quod madidum tabo diadema cruentis unguibus abripui, votisque instincta paternis i media in fratres, generis consortia ferro dissiliant. da, Tartarei regina barathri, quod cupiam vidisse nefas.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 73

God , Flying , Partnership

“The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires; so it is that punishment tames man, but does not make him "better."”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 2, Section 15
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Fear , Sense

“Before he died, Guru Govind Singh had commissioned Banda Bairagi, a Rajput from Jammu to go to the Punjab and punish the wrong-doers. Banda more than fulfilled his mission. He was joined by fresh formations of the Khalsa and the Hindus at large gave him succour and support. He roamed all over the Punjab, defeating one Muslim army after another in frontal fights as well as in guerilla warfare. Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singh's younger sons had been walled up, was stormed and sacked. The bullies of Islam who had walked with immense swagger till only the other day had to run for cover. Large parts of the Punjab were liberated from Muslim despotism after a spell of nearly seven centuries. The Mughal empire, however, was still a mighty edifice which could mobilize a military force far beyond Banda's capacity to match. Gradually, he had to yield ground and accept defeat as his own following thinned down in battle after battle. He was captured, carried to Delhi in an iron cage and tortured to death in 1716 A. D. Many other members of the Khalsa met the same fate in Delhi and elsewhere. The Muslim governor of the Punjab had placed a prize on every Khalsa head. The ranks of the Khalsa had perforce to suffer a steep decline and go into hiding.”

Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander

Swarup, Ram, & Goel, S. R. (1985). Hindu-Sikh relationship. (Introduction by S.R. Goel)

Death , Fate , Support , Suffering

“Just as maniacs, who never enjoy tranquility, so also he who is resentful and retains an enemy will never have the enjoyment of any peace; incessantly raging and daily increasing the tempest of his thoughts calling to mind his words and acts, and detesting the very name of him who has aggrieved him. Do you but mention his enemy, he becomes furious at once, and sustains much inward anguish; and should he chance to get only a bare sight of him, he fears and trembles, as if encountering the worst evils, Indeed, if he perceives any of his relations, if but his garment, or his dwelling, or street, he is tormented by the sight of them. For as in the case of those who are beloved, their faces, their garments, their sandals, their houses, or streets, excite us, the instant we behold them; so also should we observe a servant, or friend, or house, or street, or any thing else belonging to those We hate and hold our enemies, we are stung by all these things; and the strokes we endure from the sight of each one of them are frequent and continual. What is the need then of sustaining such a siege, such torment and such punishment? For if hell did not threaten the resentful, yet for the very torment resulting from the thing itself we ought to forgive the offences of those who have aggrieved us. But when deathless punishments remain behind, what can be more senseless than the man, who both here and there brings punishment upon himself, while he thinks to be revenged upon his enemy!”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homilies on the Statues http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf109/Page_474.html, Homily XX

Hate , Fear , Peace , Forgiveness

“Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (p. 56)

Beauty , Way

“However, during the third class he'd finally had enough. "Anne Frank, as punishment for talking in class, write an essay entitled, Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterback."”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Writing a story about a teacher who is scolding her for being talkative in class. Variant translations: Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Miss Quackenbush. / Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Miss Natterbeak.
21 June 1942
(1942 - 1944)

“Generally speaking, punishment makes men hard and cold; it concentrates; it sharpens the feeling of alienation; it strengthens the power of resistance.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Second Essay, Aphorism 14
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Men , Feeling

“Now, what is 'unrighteousness' in practice? It is in practice behavior of a kind disliked by the herd. By calling it unrighteousness, and by arranging an elaborate system of ethics around this conception, the herd justifies itself in wreaking punishment upon the objects of its own dislike, while at the same time, since the herd is righteous by definition, it enhances its own self-esteem at the very moment when it lets loose its impulse to cruelty. This is the psychology of lynching, and of the other ways in which criminals are punished. The essence of the conception of righteousness, therefore, is to afford an outlet for sadism by cloaking cruelty as justice.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Idea of Righteousness"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)

Justice , Way , Behavior , Time

“The invocation of science, of its ground rules, of the exclusive validity of the methods that science has now completely become, now constitutes a surveillance authority punishing free, uncoddled, undisciplined thought and tolerating nothing of mental activity other than what has been methodologically sanctioned. Science and scholarship, the medium of autonomy, has degenerated into an instrument of heteronomy.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Die Berufung auf Wissenschaft, auf ihre Spielregeln, auf die Alleingültigkeit der Methoden, zu denen sie sich entwickelte, ist zur Kontrollinstanz geworden, die den freien, ungegängelten, nicht schon dressierten Gedanken ahndet und vom Geist nichts duldet als das methodologisch Approbierte. Wissenscahaft,das Medium von Autonomie, ist in einen Apparat der Heteronomie ausgeartet.
Source: Wozu noch Philosophie? [Why still philosophy?] (1963), p. 12

Science

“Usury and racketeering, as well as ruthless enrichment at the cost and harm of the people, will be punished with death.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

Source: The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation (1923), p. 54

Death , People

“That city in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Plutarch Solon, ch. 18; translation by Bernadotte Perrin. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+18.1
Having been asked what city was best to live in.

“I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work. Is that not so?”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

Men , Justice , Game , Thinking

“The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime—for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Life , Law

“Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Discovery of the Child (1948), Ch. 1

Soul

“Eugenio Scalfari: Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?
Pope Francis: They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Interview published in La Repubblica (28 March 2018), as translated in the web log Rorate Caeli http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/03/there-is-no-hell-new-francis-revelation.html (29 March 2018)
2010s, 2018

God , Soul , Forgiveness , Hell

“Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.”

Voltaire Dictionnaire philosophique

Que les supplices des criminels soient utiles. Un homme pendu n’est bon à rien, et un homme condamné aux ouvrages publics sert encore la patrie, et est une leçon vivante.
"Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws," Dictionnaire philosophique (1785-1789)
The Dictionnaire philosophique was a posthumously published collection of articles combining the Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (published under various editions and titles from 1764 to 1777), the Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (published from 1770 to 1774), articles written for the Encyclopédie and the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, the manuscript known as l'Opinion sur l'alphabet and a number of previously published miscellaneous articles.
Citas

Country

“Thou seest, then, in what foulness unrighteous deeds are sunk, with what splendour righteousness shines. Whereby it is manifest that goodness never lacks its reward, nor crime its punishment.”
Videsne igitur quanto in caeno probra volvantur, qua probitas luce resplendeat? In quo perspicuum est numquam bonis praemia, numquam sua sceleribus deesse supplicia.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose III, line 1; translation by H. R. James
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book IV