James May Quotes

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

It's important we understand our system seeks justice and not revenge.

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I believe in two eyes for an eye.

In Scotland over many years we have cultivated through our justice system what I hope can be described as a 'culture of compassion.' On the other hand, there still exists in many parts of the U.S., if not nationally, an attitude towards the concept of justice which can only be described as a 'culture of vengeance.'

Just vengeance does not call for punishment.

The essence of justice is mercy.

When critics sit in judgment it is hard to tell where justice leaves off and vengeance begins.

I don't believe in vengeance. Really, when all is said and done, I probably don't believe in punishment.

One threatens the innocent who spares the guilty.

Every punishment is based, not on logic or the feeling of justice, but on the desire to wish evil on those who have done evil to you or to another person…. Everything about our present system of punishments and about all criminal law will be thought of by future generations in the same way that we think of cannibalism or human sacrifice to the pagan gods. “How did they not see the uselessness and cruelty of those things which they did?” our descendants will say about us.

I don't believe in the death penalty, but I understand personal vengeance.

Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate.

There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?

Justice is revenge.

To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.

I want no mercy. I want justice, justice, justice.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

In primitive Buddhism, in primitive Christianity, in the writings of some of the Moslem teachers, in the early movements of the Reform, and especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of the last century and of our own times, the total abandonment of the idea of revenge, or of "due reward" — of good for good and evil for evil — is affirmed more and more vigorously. The higher conception of "no revenge for wrongs," and of freely giving more than one expects to receive from his neighbors, is proclaimed as being the real principle of morality — a principle superior to mere equivalence, equity, or justice, and more conducive to happiness … In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race.

The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.

Compassion is no substitute for justice.

Without justice, the most heinous crimes go unpunished; victims are unable to obtain redress, and peace remains an elusive goal, since impunity generates more hatred, leading to acts of revenge and more suffering.

An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own

there is no glory in punishing