Barbara Deming Quotes

Retaliation is sometimes mercy, mercy to both parties

The injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

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

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

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

I don't think vengeance is much good.

I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I believe in two eyes for an eye.

Instead of a man of peace and love, I have become a man of violence and revenge.

It's far easier to forgive an enemy after you've got even with him.

Never let one's enemy escape.

We can't continue with a justice of vengeance. Peace will require us to accept a certain degree of impunity; it's inevitable.

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.

Forgiveness is the noblest vengeance.

We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged

There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

You have to see the human being in the enemy. If there is potential for change, there is still hope.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

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

Some may seek revenge, but this is not our policy.

A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.

The South is the home of 'an eye for an eye.' 'Turning the other cheek'? The South can't see that.

Any story about revenge is ultimately a story about forgiveness, redemption, or the futility of revenge.

Reconciliation does not mean covering history with a blanket. Reconciliation means truth, justice and love. Justice without love can degenerate into vengeance. We need to know the truth for medicinal reasons, so that what happened … will never happen again.

An eye for any eye makes the whole world blind.