Death Penalty Quotes

• Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.

  Albert Camus

  Punishment, Murder, Penalties

  "Reflections on the Guillotine". Book by Albert Camus, 1957.

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• Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

  Henry Ford

  Inspirational, Punishment, Charity

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• Crime is redeemed by remorse, but not by a blow of the axe or slipknot. Blood has to be washed by tears but not by blood.

  Victor Hugo

  Blow, Blood, Tears

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• 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.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Believe, Punishment, People

  "It just occurred to me that this is the day I was not meant to see". TV Interview with Gill Nevill on Brighton Bomb for Channel 4 "A plus 4", www.margaretthatcher.org. October 15, 1984.

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• Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Stars, Hate

  "Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?". Book by Martin Luther King, 1967.

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• To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.

  Desmond Tutu

  Revenge, Punishment, Justice

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• I think more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

  Nancy Reagan

  Death, Thinking, People

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• I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again.

  Bill Maher

  Thinking, Punishment, Justice

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• I don't believe in a lot of things from the Bronze Age, but an eye for an eye does make a sort of symmetrical sense to me. I really believe that if somebody takes a life, that [death penalty] is what they should get. I also think it's a lot more humane than keeping people in a cage for the rest of their life.

  Bill Maher

  Believe, Eye, Thinking

  Interview with Elizabeth Gettelman, www.motherjones.com. September/October 2008.

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• Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, 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.

  Albert Camus

  Death, Punishment, Dying

  "Reflections on the Guillotine". Book by Albert Camus, 1957.

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• Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

  John Locke

  Men, Blood, Criminal Mind

  John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.196

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• The death penalty serves no one. It doesn't serve the victims. It doesn't serve prevention. It's truly all about retribution....There comes a time when you have to ask if a penalty that is so permanent can be available in such an imperfect system. The only guarantee against executing the innocent is to do away with the death penalty.

  Jeanne Woodford

  Guarantees, Prevention, Imperfect

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• More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the [biblical] texts that authorised them remain.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Biblical, Law

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• I don't think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don't think that's right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people's lives.

  George W. Bush

  Revenge, Thinking, People

  George W. Bush at the third Presidential Debate, abcnews.go.com. October 17, 2000.

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• The punishment of murder by death is contrary to reason, and to the order and happiness of society, and contrary to divine revelation.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Order, Punishment, Divine Revelation

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• Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job.

  George Orwell

  Jobs, Punishment, People

  George Orwell (2016). “The Road to Wigan Pier”, p.97, Jester House Publishing

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• Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life.

  Coretta Scott King

  Justice, Human Life, Humans

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• It can be argued that rapists deserve to be raped, that mutilators deserve to be mutilated. Most societies, however, refrain from responding in this way because the punishment is not only degrading to those on whom it is imposed, but it is also degrading to the society that engages in the same behavior as the criminals.

  Stephen Bright

  Punishment, Criminals, Way

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• It should be clear that the death penalty does just the opposite of promoting decency and respect for life. It dehumanizes people and promotes murder. It can never be applied fairly.

  John Morrison

  Opposites, People, Doe

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• Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.

  Orrin Hatch

  Death, Punishment, Political

  "The Cassell Dictionary of Regrettable Quotations". Book by David Milsted, 1999.

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• As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.

  Coretta Scott King

  Mother, Husband, Law

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• I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Punishment, People, Trials

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• In the US the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed.

  George Ryan

  People, Drug, Majority

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• The death sentence is a barbaric act.

  Nelson Mandela

  Death Sentence, Sentences, Barbaric

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• My own view on capital punishment is that it is morally justified, but that the government is often so inept and corrupt that innocent people might die as a result. Thus, I personally oppose capital punishment.

  Ed Crane

  Government, Views, Punishment

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