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The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind
The sentence of the first murderer was pronounced by the Supreme Judge of the universe. Was it death? No, it was life. "A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth;" and "Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold."
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Table-Talk
The law which attempts a man's life 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
Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job.
GEORGE ORWELL, The Road to Wigan Pier
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.
If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.
HELEN PREJEAN, Dead Man Walking
Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN, The Fellowship of the Ring
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