Punishment (n.) is meted out, on the one hand, by the weak unto a so-called offender on account that the offender could have acted differently. On the other hand, when the strong punish, they do it simply because it is fun to punish people owing you something by gouging out an eye.
Punishment (n.) hardens and renders people more insensible. It concentrates, it increases the feeling of estrangement, and it strengthens the power of resistance.
Punishment (n.) , rather than reforming, hardens and numbs, sharpens the consciousness of alienation, and strengthens the power of resistance.
Punishment (n.) is to improve those who do the punishing.
Punishment (n.) is suspect — Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Punishment (n.) is measured by the degree of astonishment of the judge who finds his crime incomprehensible.
Punishment (n.) is meted out by the judges' astonishment: a good defence counsel, knowing the whole history, extenuates the guilt away — 'if we punished, we would be punishing eternal necessity'.
Punishment (n.) comes to most criminals the way children come to women — having done the same thing hundreds of times without consequence, suddenly a disclosure.
Punishment (n.) of a man's past logically requires punishing its causes too — parents, educators, society, the judges themselves; free-willers should boldly decree: 'no deed possesses a past'.
Punishment (n.) is revenge: it restores private and social honour — mixed with self-defence and deterrence, so that the avenger usually does not know what he really wants.
Punishment (n.) and wrath are a birthday present from the animal world; man will come of age only when he gives the gift back.
Punishment (n.) is the most noxious weed: it has been planted into the consequences of our actions, turning cause and effect into cause and punishment and robbing chance of its innocence.
Punishment (n.) of our kind does not cleanse the offender and is no expiation: it defiles more than the offence itself.
Punishment (n.) has, as its last apology, the purpose of improving those who punish.
Punishment (n.) as a strong drive is a mark to mistrust — mistrust all in whom the drive to punish is strong; in their faces the hangman and the bloodhound are visible.
Punishment (n.) is what revenge calls itself — a lying word that hypocritically asserts its good conscience.
Punishment (n.) tames men but does not make them better; it makes them prudent — and insofar as injury makes one prudent, it makes one bad. Fortunately it often makes people stupid.
Punishment (n.) does not purify, for crime does not sully: it is no penance and no payment, only the suppression of a revolt.
Punishment (n.) once purified — one paid, and was rid of what one had suffered for; in the modern world it sullies, isolating more than the crime and releasing an enemy of society.
Punishment (n.) does not purify, for crime does not pollute — it is no penance and no clearing of a debt, only putting down a rebellion.