Coretta Scott King
Civil Rights Activist
"Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life."
Death Penalty quotes
Death Penalty
119 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Albert Camus
Philosopher, Writer
"Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God."
Coretta Scott King
Civil Rights Activist
"An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed in retaliation."
George Ryan
Politician
"I am haunted by the demon of error - error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die."
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Death Penalty quotes (page 1 of 6)
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"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life."
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"The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life."
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"The death penalty symbolizes whom we fear and don't fear, whom we care about and whose lives are not valid."
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"In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty."
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"My overriding belief is that it is always possible for criminals to improve and that by its very finality the death penalty contradicts this."
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"In all religions, we make a choice about what we emphasize, and I choose to come down on the side of a loving God."
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"Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process."
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"Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons."
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"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty."
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"What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!"
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"For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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"The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process. Where the death penalty persists, conditions for those awaiting execution are often horrifying, leading to aggravated suffering."
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"Sometimes you just have the thin the herd."
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"Now let me get this straight. Bush is anti-abortion, but pro-death penalty. I guess it's all in the timing, huh?"
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"Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."
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"The death penalty is reserved for people who do not"
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"I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . ."
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"Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty."
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"I think [the death penalty is] very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims' families."
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"The death sentence is a barbaric act."
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