I am, indeed, far from desiring to increase in this kingdom the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they who destroy the confidence of society, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened […]
Capital Punishment Quotes
All crimes should be punished with humiliations- public exposure in ridiculous and grotesque situations- and never in any other way. Death makes a hero of the villian, and he is envied by some spectators and imitators.
If we are not our brother’s keeper, let us at least not be his executioner.
A compassionate conservative is someone who electrocutes juveniles but lets them have a last ‘make a wish’.
Kill one, terrify a thousand.
It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.
What? Still alive at twenty-two? A find, upstanding lad like you? Why, if your throat ’tis hard to slit, Slit your girl’s and swing for it. Like enough, you won’t be glad, When they come to hang you, lad; But bacon’s not the only thing, That’s cured by hanging from a string.
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.
It took only a moment to cause this head to fall and a hundred years will not suffice to produce its like. (on the execution of chemist Antoine Lavoisier during the 1789 French revolution)
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
