Feliks Dzerzhinski Quotes

And so you take criminal caitiffs, murderers, and the like, and hang them on gibbets "for an example to deter others." Whereupon arise friends of humanity, and object. With very great reason, as I consider, if your hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any poor creature "for an example"? He can turn round upon you and say, "Why make an 'example' of me, a merely ill-situated, pitiable man? Have you no more respect for misfortune? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred. And yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out of me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your own convenience alone?

Either we agree that any terrorism is unacceptable, or we will be playing a double-standard game where some son of a bitch is okay because he is our son of a bitch.

I don't think you should punish a guy for losing when they were hurt.

Love the offender, yet detest the offense.

Mercy trumps justice.

Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce.

there is no glory in punishing

Kill the king but spare the man.

Let me say the good are often punished unfairly.

We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and-perhaps-we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?’ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offense?

Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.

Equal opportunity is good, but special privilege is better.

Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

Then the old man's face hardened. "What about you young man?" he asked flatly. "Would you like to get what you deserve?" Jones let that question hang in the air for a moment, then sighed, shook his head, and said "Me? I surely don't want what I deserve. I'm hoping for mercy, not justice.

If your are ever called upon to chasten a person, never chasten beyond the balm you have within you to bind up.

Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job.

There is a difference between grace and mercy. Mercy is the decision of God not to punish us. But grace is the decision of God to save and bless us.

It's the same in real life: Notorious murderers get off scot-free and live happily all their lives, while good people die - sometimes the very best people. That's the way of the world.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Keep out of this," Lucian said. "I'm not smiting anybody." "You're showing mercy." Catch-a-Tick nodded. "That's heroic, too. But not as good as smiting.

Grace is when you should be totally punished but are blessed for no reason.