Andrew Rivas Quotes

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

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.

The difference between justice and forgiveness: To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That's what the forgiving God does.

There is no forgiveness in nature.

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

Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished.

There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven. But this is not one of them.

The punishment of the wrongdoer is not designed as atonement for a crime; it is a solace to the individual who has suffered a private wrong.

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

The abolition of death penalty would give more opportunities for pastoral work with those who have stumbled and for the latter to repent. It is also evident that punishment by death cannot be reformatory; it also makes misjudgement irreparable

The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.

Justice should not admit a public's thirst for pure revenge.

there is no glory in punishing

I found that the death penalty  -  and I'm not a hot-button issue person, you know, I'm not a single issue person  -  but what I think drew me to the death penalty is because it raises some very deep, fundamental questions like: Is anybody beyond redemption?

Justice is a judgement that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.

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

I am grateful that I live in a nation where most believe that one's punishment should fit their wrongdoing and that ours is a nation that judges an individual by both what he has done and how he has changed.

The Christian - the biblical - concept of mercy toward wrongdoers only exists in relation to justice. Showing mercy, in relation to wrongdoing, means treating someone better than they deserve.

Just vengeance does not call for punishment.

The essence of justice is mercy.

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

To show men that crimes can be pardoned, and that punishment is not their inevitable consequence, encourages the illusion of impunity and induces the belief that, since there are pardons, those sentences which are not pardoned are violent acts of force rather than the products of justice.

I don't think that anybody should be suspended for life for anything, other than murder. How is it helping someone to say, 'You're done forever, your life's over'?

I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life.

I do not think that condemning people who murder and killing them necessarily sends out the right message.