Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
If we were brought to trial for the
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
The virtue of justice consists in
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
No written law has been more binding
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The solution to our drug problem is not
The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
One of the problems that the marijuana
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
The contagion of crime is like that of
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
We're in a war. People who blast some
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
History is full of people who went to
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Educate your children to self-control,
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Experts and the educated elite have
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
We don't seem to be able to check crime,
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
There are dreadful punishments enacted
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
