"The divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding . . . as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration."
Read quote
16 likes
Punishment quotes
Punishment
981 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Punishment
Browse quotes that often appear alongside punishment — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Punishment quotes (page 4 of 50)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Exemplary people concern themselves with virtue, small people concern themselves with territory. The ruling class thinks of punishment, the lower classes hope for benevolence."
Read quote
16 likes
"I learned discipline from my father. Not in terms of corporal punishment, but being determined in whatever you do, and sticking with it."
Read quote
16 likes
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment."
Read quote
16 likes
"Children must be educated by love, not punishment."
Read quote
16 likes
"Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for that: truancy, (2) counterattack-vandalism on schools and attacks on teachers, (3) apathy-a sullen do-nothing withdrawal. The more violent the punishment, the more serious the by-products."
Read quote
15 likes
"No one who has ever done anything really great or successful has ever done it simply because he was attracted by what we call a 'reward' or by the fear of what we call a 'punishment.'"
Read quote
15 likes
"The public has more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it."
Read quote
14 likes
"To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end."
Read quote
14 likes
"War...is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer."
Read quote
14 likes
"A community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurence of crime."
Read quote
14 likes
"Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job."
Read quote
14 likes
"If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison."
Read quote
14 likes
"Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are."
Read quote
13 likes
"To take the difficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge to overcome makes us stronger, rather than unjust punishment which should not happen to us, requires faith and courage."
Read quote
13 likes
"I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well."
Read quote
13 likes
"I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are 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 their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
Read quote
13 likes
"Release old concepts and energies that keep you in self-punishment patterns. Release old stories and create from a place of love and self-validation. You are worth it!"
Read quote
13 likes
"To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands."
Read quote
13 likes
"I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear."
Read quote
13 likes