This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
War is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.
Punishment | War | Wisdom |
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in the punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Good | Government | Health | Little | Observation | People | Punishment | Rebellion | Rights | Sound | Truth | Wisdom | World |
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
Mind | Punishment | Will | Wisdom |
The opportunity of making happy is more scarce than we imagine; the punishment of missing it is, never to meet with it again; and the use owe make of it leaves us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.
Eternal | Happy | Opportunity | Punishment | Repentance | Sentiment | Wisdom |
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Behavior | Death | Education | Fear | Hope | Man | Punishment | Reward | Sympathy |
Its effects on the soul is to be measured neither by the guilt nor by the temporal punishment inexorably fixed, but by that deep sense of loneliness it brings with it.
Guilt | Loneliness | Punishment | Sense | Soul |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
One ought to both be feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting… Love is held by a chain of obligation, which men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Dread | Fear | Love | Men | Obligation | Punishment | Purpose | Purpose |
Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others.
Failure | Laziness | Punishment | Success |
In deciding what course of action is moral, you should act as if there were no God. You should act as if there were no threat of earthly punishment or reward. You should be a person of good character because it is right to be such a person.
Action | Character | God | Good | Punishment | Reward | Right |
The truly moral person is the one who does the right thing without any promise of reward or threat of punishment - without engaging in a cost-benefit analysis.
Cost | Promise | Punishment | Reward | Right |
The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, cunning, 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 | Compassion | Cunning | Giving | Honesty | Justice | Little | Love | Need | Play | Punishment | Reward | Work |
If the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is inflicted by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected by contraries.
Action | Means | Nature | Pain | Passion | Pleasure | Punishment | Reason | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
Public | Punishment |
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Two protecting deities, indeed, like two sober friends supporting a drunkard, flank human folly and keep it within bounds. One of these deities is Punishment and the other Agreement.
Folly | Punishment | Friends |