Bret Stephens Quotes

If we started prosecuting people for sin, we’d all be in jail.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

But this will not do, God will certainly punish you for stealing and for being unfaithful.

Sin is still sin - no matter how you spell it.

The offence is, in some measure, to be tolerated in those who did it through ignorance, so it is to be rigorously punished in those who do not fear to sin knowingly

Every law must be just in every part of it, but if the penalty annexed be unjust, how can it be held forth as a just law?

It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for [stealing] a little money; for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life: and if it is said that it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law, I must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money?

Human law is imposed on the multitude, a part of which is composed of men imperfect in virtue. Thus all the vices from which the virtuous abstain are not punished by human law, but only the more grievous ones which most people can avoid, and especially those which can hurt others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be preserved. Thus homicide, theft and the like are prohibited by human law.

It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible.

Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do.

Wickedness is its own punishment.

All religions accept that there is something called 'criminality.' And criminality cannot be excused by religious fervour.

It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.

One threatens the innocent who spares the guilty.

Public emergencies may require the hand of severity to fall heavily on those who are not personally guilty, but compassion prompts, and ever urges to milder methods.

There is no sin except stupidity.

The bad guys don't always get punished and the good guys are not necessarily pure.

The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?

Every person who is tempted to go astray does not deserve punishment

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them are abomination …

The killing of a criminal can be moral, but never its legitimation.

A murder is not a martyr. He or she is just a murderer.

Crimes are not to be measured by the issue of events, but from the bad intentions of men.

The gentleman is guilty of every crime that does not require courage.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.