Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate.

Show me one director who does not get angry on their assistant for something that has gone wrong. But it is done out of my love. It's just fun when I tell them to face a wall and stand or kneel down in a corner. It's not like I want to punish them harshly. It's not to humiliate; it is to teach.

To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.

there is no glory in punishing

Understanding isn't learned from punishment and anger. An iron has no gentle touch, and love ain't learned from hate.

I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.

Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he's got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they'd soon sort him out.

Experts say you should never hit your children in anger. When is a good time? When you're feeling festive?

I don't believe in vengeance. Really, when all is said and done, I probably don't believe in punishment.

As a parent, you have to figure out how to shape your kid's character. You want to have human beings who learn about good character. You have to be able to see your child with clarity, see the good side and the bad side of them, and work on the bad side and make them better so they fulfill their potential.

Punishment should have a redemptive quality to it.

The object of punishment is to... lift the man up; to stamp out his bad nature and wicked disposition.

Tough love is the hardest to give.

We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.

Justice is not Healing. Healing cometh only by suffering and patience, and maketh no demand, not even for Justice. Justice worketh only within the bonds of things as they are... and therefore though Justice is itself good and desireth no further evil, it can but perpetuate the evil that was, and doth not prevent it from the bearing of fruit in sorrow.

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

I'm quite a disciplinarian: I can be a shouter. But I can be a very demonstrative kisser and hugger.

One of the things about jail that's weird is that you're sent to a place where you're supposed to sit there and think about your actions and their consequences and why you're there. And I think now, it turns more into - the minute you go there, it's just survival.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

What's the difference between tough love and acting like a jerk?

Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one.

I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty's 'soft' approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge.