Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Quotes
Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone. A trap. Because then he will be no longer without guilt.
Lec, Stanislaw Jerzy. Unkempt Thoughts. Translated by Jacek Galazka, St. Martin's Press, 1962.
The admiral, who was the intellectual leader of the junta during the “Dirty War,” confessed to the facts but claimed that the drastic steps were appropriate and necessary. Further, that there was no “guilt” involved in an act of executive necessity. The court did not agree and he was convicted, but was later pardoned along with the other war criminals by President Carlos Menem.
Nathaniel Gordon was the first American slave trader to be executed after the slave trade was made illegal. The Erie was his slave ship where, as was typical, many of the captured Blacks, died as a result of the inhuman conditions. Although Gordon was the first person executed in America, the act making the slave trade an act of piracy dated from 1820. See {68753} .
In some societies, drunkenness is an extenuating circumstance which diminishes moral and legal guilt. In others it is not. In the United States is sometimes is and sometimes is not. Generally, a drunk person will not be relieved of all guilt but often the charge will be lessened—for example from murder to manslaughter. Aristotle suggested, and in some Islamic countries it is observed that the person who commits a crime while drunk is punished twice—once for the crime and once for being drunk.
Stanisław Jerzy Lec, born Baron Stanisław Jerzy de Tusch-Letz, was a Polish aphorist and poet. Often mentioned among the greatest writers of post-war Poland, he was one of the most influential aphorists of the 20th century, known for lyrical poetry and skeptical philosophical-moral aphorisms, often with a political subtext.
