Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder.

I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.

Just remember, stealing's punishable by death

Remember the death penalty is murder.

One of my friends went on a murder weekend... now he is doing life for it.

I hear they burn for murder. Well, they say it just takes a second to die.

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

I believe in the death penalty.

I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.

Every unpunished murder takes away something from the security of every man's life.

God himself instituted capital punishment as a remedy for certain crimes, at the very least murder…All life is so sacred that anyone who takes it is required to pay the same penalty.

The hanging of black men for murder and the inflicting of a lighter punishment upon white men for the same offense will not have a very beneficial effect upon the black population. Such partiality in the administration of justice will embitter the blacks and will give greater license in the commission of crimes of violence to the whites. Criminals, white and blacks, must be treated alike. Before the infliction of the death penalty will do the good it ought to there must be a public sentiment that will demand that there shall be no leniency shown by courts and juries to white murderers.

If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by our friends the murders.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

A murder is not a martyr. He or she is just a murderer.

What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal, who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him, and who from that moment onward had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.

Within the realm of the law, we have to be as severe as we can. We will not simply give capital punishment to all criminals, but those who deserve it will get it.

Execute murderers, abortionists, accessories.

Robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; murder is a crime; treason is a crime and crime must be punished. The law provides for it, and the courts are open. Treason must be made infamous and traitors must be impoverished.

Murder of a man by his wife was called treason (petty as distinguished from high treason), and was more cruelly avenged than was usually the case with high treason;

Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg was of little consequence. They constitute a portion of the population that is worse than useless in any community; and their death, if no pernicious example be set by it, is never a matter of reasonable regret with any one. If they were annually swept from the stage of existence by the plague or smallpox, honest men would perhaps be much profited by the operation.

There is always a political issue whenever you empower a state to kill its own citizens … the abuse of the power as in Europe of the 20th century is the problem …. If we believe that some people ought to receive the death penalty for their crimes, there appears to be no way of executing the ones who should receive the death penalty without sweeping in ones who do not.

But passing by all other considerations, and contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them.

As governor, I came to believe that the death penalty would be a just punishment for certain, especially heinous crimes, such as the murder of a child or the murder of a police officer. The events of September 11 convinced me that terrorists also deserve the ultimate punishment.

I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.