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

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.
~ Aristotle

Punishment is justice for the unjust.
~ St. Augustine

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

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
~ Jerry Brown

Hanging is too good for him said Mr. Cruelty.
~ John Bunyan

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
~ Samuel Butler

I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.
~ Lord Byron

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.
~ Albert Camus

Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum.
~ Miguel De Cervantes

Let the punishment be proportionate to the offense.
~ Marcus T. Cicero

It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.
~ Pierre Corneille

Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?
~ Diogenes of Sinope

Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to Heaven.
~ Henry Fielding

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

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

Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.
~ Edward F. Halifax

One should not lift the rod against our enemies upon the private information of another.
~ Hitopadesa

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.
~ Horace

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.
~ Victor Hugo