Punishments Quotes

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

In revenge and punishments we must have our eye not at the evill past, but the future good. That is: It is not lawfull to inflict punishment for any other end, but that the offender may be corrected, or that others warned by his punishment may become better

The punishments were whipping, putting you in the stocks and making you wear irons and a chain at work. Then they had a collar to put round your neck with two horns, like cows' horns, so that you could not lie down on your back or belly. This also kept you from running away for the horns would catch in the bushes. Sometimes they dug a hole like a well with a door on top. This they called a dungeon keeping you in it two or three weeks or a month, and sometimes till you died in there. This hole was just big enough to receive the body; the hands down by the sides.

The holy Synod forbids all clerics whatsoever to dare to keep concubines, or any other woman of whom any suspicion can exist, either in their own houses, or elsewhere, or to presume to have any intercourse with them …. if, after being admonished by their superiors, they shall not abstain from these women, they shall be ipso facto deprived of the third part of the fruits, rents, and proceeds of all their benefices whatsoever, and pensions

If you're trying to understand why it is that certain things happen in Sacramento and certain things don't, at the end of the day, it comes down to the issue of incentives: We do what we're incentivized to do.

Every law must be just in every part of it, but if the penalty annexed be unjust, how can it be held forth as a just law?

The commanders likewise shall be careful lest the sick lack anything in the way of food and other necessaries, so far as they can be provided. However, if through despite or negligence on the part of those who provide for the needs of the sick, the sick are neglected, then the brethren who serve in the hospital shall notify the master or the superior, who shall inflict suitable punishment according to the gravity of the offense. He to whom the sick are entrusted shall also take care to secure, if possible, attendants who will bring devotion and humbleness to the task of compassionately and faithfully serving the sick; and if obvious neglect by those who tend the sick comes to his attention, he shall not let it go unpunished

There are two means by which states are maintained in their weal and greatness--reward and penalty: the one for the good, the other for the bad. And, if the distribution of these two be faulty, nothing else is to be expected than the inevitable ruin of the state... .

Perhaps our Congress will be Exalted on a high Gallows

The warden strapped these men into the electric chair / the executioner threw the switch / and set them free into the wind / they are free of the dreams now / free of the greasy prison denim / their voices blow back in a thousand lingoes singing one song / to burst the eardrums of Massachusetts.

Rogues and vagabonds are often stocked and whipped; scolds are ducked upon cucking-stools in the water. Such felons as stand mute, and speak not at their arraignment, are pressed to death by huge weights laid upon a board, that lieth over their breast, and a sharp stone under their backs; and these commonly held their peace, thereby to save their goods unto their wives and children, which, if they were condemned, should be confiscated to the prince

In the world at large, people are rewarded or punished in ways that are often utterly random. In the garden, cause and effect, labor and reward, are re-coupled. Gardening makes sense in a senseless world. By extension, then, the more gardens in the world, the more justice, the more sense is created.

The exclusion of jurors opposed to the death penalty allows the state a special advantage in those prosecutions where the charges are most serious and the possible punishment the most severe.

Those greatly err who think that penalties are established only to punish crime. I hold that this is the least of the fruits which accrue there from to the state. For the greatest and the chief is the appeasing of the wrath of God, especially if the crime is directly against the majesty of God … strike awe into some by the punishment of others, to preserve some from being infected by others, to diminish the number of evil-doers, to make secure the life of the well-disposed

… capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

I think it is in our interest to punish the first insult; because the first insult is the parent of many others.

… cast into a burning hell

Should one be shallow enough to view existence as a system of rewards and punishments, one soon learns that we pay as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats.

What right, then, but that of power, can authorize the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This 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

Delivering up the Negroes to their former masters would be delivering them up—some to execution and others to punishments which would in my own opinion be a dishonorable violation of the public faith

Whoever shall have blasphemed, swearing by the body or by the blood of our Lord, or in similar manner, he shall be made to kiss the earth for the first offence ; for the second to pay 5 sous, and for the third 6 sous, and for the last offence be put in the pillory for one hour.

How many thousands of the subjects of Great Britain, at this moment labor under Civil disabilities, merely on account of their religious persuasions!

… a punishment for blasphemers.

Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and the Peedee that was not in arms against us.

If there were an exact and universal scale of punishments and crimes, we would have a fairly reliable and shared instrument to measure the degree of tyranny and liberty, of the basic humanity or malice of the different nations.