Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

Hanging is too good for him said Mr. Cruelty.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

Well, there's no one at all, they do be saying, but is deserving of some punishment from the very minute of his birth.

Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere.

Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one.

No one provokes me with impunity.

Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

And where the offence is, let the great axe fall.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.

If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.

We have found that morals are not, like bacon, to be cured by hanging; nor, like wine, to be improved by sea voyages; nor, like honey, to be preserved in cells.