John Dryden Quotes

Every guilty person is his own hangman.

We are not punished for our sins, but by them.

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

I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.

Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.

Then the old man's face hardened. "What about you young man?" he asked flatly. "Would you like to get what you deserve?" Jones let that question hang in the air for a moment, then sighed, shook his head, and said "Me? I surely don't want what I deserve. I'm hoping for mercy, not justice.

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.

Often, very often, we are punished as much by our sins as we are for them.

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.

God will punish the wicked. And before He does, we will.

Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in his public violation of justice.

Vengeance comes not slowly either upon you or any other wicked man, but steals silently and imperceptibly, placing its foot on the bad.

Lucifer protests he was never to blame for inducing anyone to sin, and that he’s never had an interest in owning souls: 'They die, and they come here – having transgressed against what they believed to be right – and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don’t make them come here… I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No, they belong to themselves. They just hate to have to face up to it.

And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude... I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.

Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.

Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!

Our faults are not seen, But past us; neither felt, but only in The punishment.

As we sin, so do we suffer

He that doth what he should not, shall feel what he would not.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

We must repay goodness and wickedness: but why exactly to the person who has done us a good or a wicked turn?

Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offense?

He who wrongs the innocent must bear the fruit of his act, like dust flung against the wind.

To spare the guilty is to injure the innocent.

Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere in the world is there a place where one may escape from the results of evil deeds.