Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Washington Gladden

My child can be no more guilty or deserving of punishment for my sin than he can see with my eyes and feel with my nerves.

Punishment | Sin | Child | Guilty |

Chilon of Lacedemon NULL

Prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life.

Life | Life | Punishment |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

The twin concepts of sin and vindictive punishment seem to be at the root of much that is most vigorous, both in religion and politics.

Politics | Punishment | Religion | Sin |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.

Consciousness | Power | Punishment |

George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne

That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.

Eternal | Hell | Mortal | Punishment | Thought | Thought |

Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg

Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.

Punishment |

Han Fei, also Han Fei Zi, Han Feitzu and Han Fei Tzu

The law does not fawn on the noble; the string does not yield to the crooked. Whatever the law applies to, the wise cannot reject nor can the brave defy. Punishment for fault never skips ministers, reward for good never misses commoners. Therefore, to correct the faults of the high, to rebuke the vices of the low, to suppress disorders, to decide against mistakes, to subdue the arrogant, to straighten the crooked, and to unify the folkways of the masses, nothing could match the law. To warn the officials and overawe the people, to rebuke obscenity and danger, and to forbid falsehood and deceit, nothing could match penalty. If penalty is severe, the noble cannot discriminate against the humble. If law is definite, the superiors are esteemed and not violated. If the superiors are not violated, the sovereign will become strong and able to maintain the proper course of government. Such was the reason why the early kings esteemed legalism and handed it down to posterity. Should the lord of men discard law and practice selfishness, high and low would have no distinction. Hence to govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong.

Blame | Falsehood | Fault | Good | Law | Lord | Men | Nothing | Practice | Praise | Punishment | Reason | Rebuke | Reward | Right | Will | Wise | Fault | Govern |

Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God? I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.

Enough | Evil | God | People | Punishment | Torture | God | Think |

Jeremy Bentham

All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil.

Punishment |

John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion

Courage | Man | Punishment | Truth |

John Philpot Curran

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

Crime | Eternal | Fate | God | Liberty | Man | Punishment | Rights | Servitude | Fate | God |

Joseph H. Hertz, fully Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz

Divine punishment is at once followed by Divine pity.

Punishment |

Joshua L. Liebman, fully Joshua Loth Liebman

Theoretically, religion wishes to make men serene and inwardly peaceful by reaching a loving and forgiving god. But in practice, there is too much undissolved wrath and punishment in most religions.

Men | Punishment | Religion | Wishes |

Junius, psyeudonym of unknown English Political Writer NULL

Vanity indeed is a venial error; for it usually carries its own punishment with it.

Punishment |

Laws of Manu, aka Manusmṛti, Manusmriti, Manusmruti or Mānava-Dharmaśāstra NULL

If the punishment does not fall on the offender himself, it falls on his sons; if not on the sons, on his grandsons.

Punishment |

Margaret Mead

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.

Behavior | Eternal | Fear | Punishment | Question |

Max Nordau, fully Max Simon Nordau, born Simon Maximilian Südfeld

Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles...respect for human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the equality of all good citizens before the law...or, in a word justice.

Equality | Good | Property | Punishment |

Michael Parenti

The goal of a good society is to structure social relations and institutions so that cooperative and generous impulses are rewarded, while antisocial ones are discouraged. The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment -- or at least much handicap -- to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.

Capitalism | Giving | Good | Little | Love | Punishment | Reward | Society | Society |

Michel Foucault

Together with war [the death penalty] was for a long time the other form of the right of the sword; it constituted the reply of the sovereign to those who attacked his will, his law, or his person... As soon as power gave itself the function of administering life, its reason for being and the logic of its exercise - and not the awakening of humanitarian feelings - made it more difficult to apply the death penalty. How could power exercise its highest prerogatives by putting people to death, when its main role was to ensure, sustain and multiply life, to put this life in order? For such a power, execution was at the same time a limit, a scandal, and a contradiction. Hence capital punishment could not be maintained except by invoking less the enormity of the crime itself than the monstrosity of the criminal, his incorrigibility, and the safeguard of society. One had the right to kill those who represented a kind of biological danger to others.

Awakening | Capital punishment | Crime | Danger | Death | Feelings | Kill | Life | Life | Logic | People | Power | Punishment | Reason | Right | Time | War | Danger |