Seneca the Younger Quotes

A law is not a law without coercion behind it.

Do not have any doubt that I will apply the law over whoever is responsible for not complying with the law.

Telling a man to go to hell and making him go are two different propositions.

Our sword must not be made of wood ... we must follow up on our threats if our demands are not obeyed.

Reward and punishment are the twin instruments of power in the State; they must not be revealed to anyone.

Governmental power is the faculty to beat into submission all those who would dare to disobey the orders issued by the authorities. … Every governmental action is backed by constables, prison guards, and executioners. However beneficial a governmental action may appear, it is ultimately made possible only by the government's power to compel its subjects to do what many of them would not do if they were not threatened by the police and the penal courts.

A law has to have teeth.

Laws can never be enforced unless fear supports them.

Power is of two kinds: one is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

One thing I learned a long time ago as a prosecutor is that it's tough to get people to obey a law if there is not penalty for breaking it.

Law, without force, is impotent.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

You can't do anything if a person says no. In such a case, there's nothing you can do - unlike the popular cliche that pressure is exerted, or that maybe an unwilling source is done away with.

This law will be impossible to enforce. It will produce contempt for our laws and law enforcement.

Who punishes one threatens a hundred.

Anyone who goes against my decisions, I liquidate him

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

It is one thing to persuade, another to command …

You have seen me kill many men at the customs; and you have often observed delinquents at Grigwhee, and others of my provinces tied, and sent up to me. I kill them, but do I ever insist on being paid for them? Some heads I order to be placed at my door, others to be strewed about the market place, that the people may stumble upon them, when they little expect such a sight. This gives a grandeur to my customs, far beyond the display of fine things which I buy; this makes my enemies fear me, and gives me such a name in the Bush. Besides, if I neglect this indispensable duty, would my ancestors suffer me to live?

He will punish you as a father punishes his disobedient child, unless you do as he desires.

Terror, salutary terror, is here in truth the order of the day; it represses all the efforts of the wicked ; it divests crime of all covering and tinsel!

Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made.