Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue?

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

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

How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.

In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible – and no one can now doubt the word of America.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately… you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you.

To be smart on crime, we should not be in a position of constantly reacting to crime after it happens. We should be looking at preventing crime before it happens.

Truth is what works.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

Social media can be very effective in creating movements. In the beginning, that is how I first got attention.

Two million felons have tried to buy a gun and, because of the background check, have been denied.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It’s still got the same strings on it.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

‚Getting smart on crime‘ does not mean reducing sentences or punishments for crimes.

The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

It was the wont of the immortal gods sometimes to grant prosperity and long impunity to men whose crimes they were minded to punish in order that a complete reverse of fortune might make them suffer more bitterly.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.

Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information – the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It’s when you go backwards through the ‚begats‘ and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, ‚Hang on, that’s a big punishment for eating one lousy apple… There’s a human-rights issue.‘

Effective action is always unjust.

The most effective way to do it, is to do it.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

I think that more flow of information, the ability to stay connected to more people makes people more effective as people. And I mean, that’s true socially. It makes you have more fun, right. It feels better to be more connected to all these people. You have a richer life.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

The appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide.

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.