Deterrent Quotes & Sayings

Fear is the best deterrent of all. — B.A. Paris

Fear of criticism is a powerful deterrent because the criticism doesn't actually have to occur for the fear to set in. Watch a few people get criticized for being innovate, and it's pretty easy to convince yourself that the very same thing will happen to you if you're not careful. — Seth Godin

In the penal system, where many of these people would eventually end up, the rapidly growing problem of petty crime had already led to pressure for harsher, more deterrent policies in the state prisons. Administrators and prison experts had argued in the last years of the Weimar Republic for the indefinite imprisonment or security confinement of habitual criminals whose hereditary degeneracy, it was assumed, rendered them incapable of inprovement. Security confinement was increasingly thought to be the long-term answer to the buden thse offenders supposedly imposed on the community. — Richard J. Evans

When men no longer fear God, they transgress His laws without hesitation. The fear of consequences is no deterrent when the fear of God is gone. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

If you've got a bag in that SUV, you might as well get it out."
"He's not staying here," Lisa countered.
"I say he is."
Lisa yanked at the coat from within. "You're not the only person who lives here, Robin."
"No, but I'm one-third owner of the house." She motioned Donovan toward his truck. "Consider whatever part of the house he's in as my third."
"Damn it, Robin! I don't want him here."
"I do."
"Why?"
Robin cocked her head to the side as if considering the question. "Because he's got that big, mean, don't-mess-with-me look of a rottweiler on steroids that could be a deterrent to any repercussions from your trip into town today, and because" - she shrugged and a smile touched her lips - "he bothers you in a way I've never seen you bothered. It's interesting. — Sarah McCarty

We don't know if capital punishment is a deterrent, but we know that men we execute will not murder again. — Mario Puzo

The founders also knew that every government system risks corruption, and they wanted to make sure Americans would be able to defend themselves should the nation's leaders become tyrannical. To that end, they ratified the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right of Americans to bear arms. An armed populace is a powerful deterrent to tyrants both domestically and internationally, and we must defend this liberty as part of our common defense. — Ben Carson

The major deterrent to war is in a man's mind. — Arleigh Burke

Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive. — Barry Goldwater

Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded? — Chris Rock

Gun-free zones don't deter criminals-they help them by providing a guarantee that they will not face any armed resistance. But they do deter the law-abiding. A faculty member with a concealed-handgun permit who breaks the campus gun ban would be fired and likely find it impossible to get admitted to another school. Bringing a firearm into a gun-free zone can have serious adverse consequences for law-abiding people. But for someone like the Virginia Tech killer, the threat of expulsion is no deterrent at all. — Glenn Beck

If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent - that's good enough. — Shimon Peres

I've often thought that beauty can be a
deterrent to love," Fern's father mused.
"Why?"
"Because sometimes we fall in love with a
face and not what's behind it. — Amy Harmon

The insects here see you as a big slab of animated but not very well defended food. The ability to move, far from being a deterrent, serves as an unforgeable guarantee of freshness. — Neal Stephenson

Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power. — John Foster Dulles

If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call. — John C. McAdams

Look, Israel doesn't intend to introduce nuclear weapons, but if people are afraid that we have them, why not? It's a deterrent. — Shimon Peres

Next, the prosecutor made a move he probably immediately regretted - he asked her about the security guards. Hamiel caused laughter in the courtroom when she responded that the guards were mostly a deterrent, so useless they were called "two-and-a-halves" because police were called "five-o's." She particularly remembered the single guard who worked there in January of 1999, who she dubbed "Useless Steve" because she did more security work than he did. On — Rabia Chaudry

I support the death penalty because I believe, if administered swiftly and justly, capital punishment is a deterrent against future violence and will save other innocent lives. — George W. Bush

Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes? — Jacqueline Carey

One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible action. — Robert McNamara

Society's double behavioral standard for women and for men is, in fact, a more effective deterrent than economic discrimination because it is more insidious, less tangible. Economic disadvantages involve ascertainable amounts, but the very nature of societal value judgments makes them harder to define, their effects harder to relate. — Anne Wilkes Tucker

You don't need anger to control children. You do need action, occasionally. Furthermore, you can apply the action anywhere on the time line that is convenient, and children will live contentedly within that boundary. In fact, the closer the action moves to the front of the conflict the less punishment is required. A pinch of the trapezius muscle would not be a sufficient deterrent at the end of a two-hour struggle, whereas it is more than adequate when the conflict is minimal. — James C. Dobson

If somebody plans to carry out a series of murders ... then this is obviously an evil and pre-meditated attack and in that case, there could be a deterrent effect. — David Davis

Criminals are motivated by self-preservation, and handguns can therefore be a deterrent. The potential defensive nature of guns is further evidenced by the different rates of so-called "hot burglaries," where a resident is at home when a criminal strikes.16 In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries are "hot burglaries." In contrast, the United States, with fewer restrictions, has a "hot burglary" rate of only 13 percent. — John R. Lott Jr.

Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, works only as long as it works; it does not know what to do if deterrence fails, for it envisions no defensive capabilities. A deterrent works until it is needed; then one needs defenses. — Jerry Pournelle

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life. — Oprah Winfrey

Iran has been calling for it for years, and the Arab countries support it. Everyone except the United States and Israel support it. The U.S. won't allow it because it means inspecting Israel's nuclear weapons. The U.S. has continued to block it, and in fact blocked it again just a couple of days ago; it just wasn't widely reported. Iran's nuclear program, as U.S. intelligence points out, is deterrent, and the bottom line is that the U.S. and Israel don't want Iran to have a deterrent. — Noam Chomsky

The idea that humans could be related to ape-like ancestors and the rest of creation was considered subversive. If man was just an animal, then he doesn't live forever, he has no soul. And if men don't have a soul, then there's no afterlife. No heaven, no fiery deterrent of hell to keep people in line in this life. And if there's no fiery deterrent to keep people in line, "well then we might as well have hell on Earth!" the critics said. — James Moore

It is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree ... I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge. — Albert Pierrepoint

Many people believe letters the most personal and revealing form of communication. In them, we expect to find the charmer at his nap, slumped, open-mouthed, profoundly himself without thought for appearances. Yet, this is not quite true. Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In conversation, those uneasy eyes upon you, those lips ready with an emendation before you have begun to speak, are a powerful deterrent to unreality, even to hope. — Elizabeth Hardwick

In the name of compassion, Obama advocates seemingly endless extensions of unemployment benefits because his economic theology holds that by paying people not to work, you will create jobs. It not only fails to factor in the obvious deterrent that extended benefits have on their recipients but also falsely assumes that transferring money from one pocket to the next generates more spending - by some mythical multiple factor, no less. Back on planet Earth, studies reveal that extending unemployment benefits results in more unemployment. — David Limbaugh

The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price. — Theodore Roosevelt

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it. — Cass Sunstein

We live in a very uncertain world, and I think that uncertainty of itself generates an environment which we should not make a decision that deprives future generations of the deterrent effect that the nuclear weapons have provided for us and for almost all of my life. — Des Browne

So don't. Take him with you. Or date long distance. I honestly don't give a fuck, so long as you stop your whining. How can you not see solutions here? You've apparently decided that you being immortal isn't a deterrent to your great love ... but a two-hour plane ride is? — Richelle Mead

It's Russia some people would like to get rid of. They are still afraid of our nuclear deterrent. We have our own foreign policy whether they like it or not. — Vladimir Putin

Reasonable taxes for this purpose need not hurt production much. The kind of government services then supplied in return, which among other things safeguard production itself, more than compensate for this. But the larger the percentage of the national income taken by taxes the greater the deterrent to private production and employment. — Henry Hazlitt

I am pro-death penalty, but not an enthusiastic death-penalty person. I think there's a place for it, that it should serve as a deterrent. — Steve Largent

The Federal Budget can and should be made an instrument of prosperity and stability, not a deterrent to recovery. — John F. Kennedy

Sometimes the greatest deterrent to a great marriage is believing you have a perfect marriage. — Francis Schaeffer

Israel claims it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against any threat to its existence. The Arab world in return feels that this is an imbalanced system; there is a sense of humiliation and impotence. — Mohamed ElBaradei

Crime is a social problem, and education is the only real deterrent. Look at all of us in prison; we were all truants and dropouts, a failure of the educational system. Look at your truancy problem, and you're looking at your future prisoners. Put the money there. — Wilbert Rideau

I've been told by professional drug users that if I did the drugs, I would like the Dead. It seems like the most effective PSA against drugs could just play some Dead jams and say, "If you do drugs, you will like this kind of music." What other deterrent would one need? — Penn Jillette

Aunt Hyacinth's protections around the house would stop a spirit. They wouldn't do anything against an axe murderer except make him queasy, which didn't seem like it would be much of a deterrent. I mean, a strong stomach probably came with the job. — Rosemary Clement-Moore

I have spent my life in the study of military strength as a deterrent to war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a war. The study of the first of these questions is still profitable, but we are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

All I really need," he continued, "is for you to act as a deterrent."
"A deterrent?" she choked out.
"A human shield, if you will."
"What?"
"I cannot be left alone with that woman," he said, and he felt no remorse at the low desperation in his voice. "Please, if you have any care for your fellow man."
Her lips clamped together in a suspicious line. "I'm not certain what I get out of the equation."
"You mean besides the joy of my delightful company?"
"Yes," she said, with an impressive lack of inflection, "besides that. — Julia Quinn

Jesus, how much stuff can one girl carry around in here?" he asked, waving a tampon. "Got your friend, huh? This is probably a good deterrent. Try waving it in the air if you run into trouble. Nobody will mess with your shit. Believe me. — Cassie Alexandra

All forces are a deterrent to and would be employed in a general war. Most of our forces could be employed in a limited war, if required — Thomas S. Gates Jr.

Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent
all depending on who wields it and how. — Steven D. Levitt

If I knew my friends, they weren't going to make these last eleven days easy. They wanted to win their damn bets, and they wanted me to finally get my head out of my ass, by any means possible. I was pretty confident they didn't really think any sort of law applied to them, and the thought of prison clearly wasn't a deterrent if our past circumstances were any indication. Milo — Rachel Van Dyken

Most Americans will be horrified that President Obama is compromising our deterrent to chemical and biological attacks on this country. Our allies will also be troubled by his aspiration to eliminate U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. — Frank Gaffney

If North Korea doesn't have a deterrent, they will be wiped out. — Noam Chomsky

It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, 'all options are open' - meaning the threat of war. — Noam Chomsky

There is no policy which will ever be as effective a deterrent in the mind of the mass marauder as the advance knowledge - the re-thinking - that someone armed will likely be where he was headed. — John Longenecker

We do not wish to have nuclear weapons on New Zealand soil or in our harbors. We do not ask, we do not expect, the United States to come to New Zealand's assistance with nuclear weapons or to present American nuclear capability as a deterrent to an attacker. — David Lange

Now, on the subject of deterrence, I admit that there can be little doubt that as presently administered in the United States, the death penalty is not a general deterrent to murder in many, if not most, situations. . . .

But of one thing I am certain: it is, by God, a specific deterrent. No one who has been executed has ever taken another innocent life. And until such time as we really mean it as a society when we say 'imprisonment for life,' I, and the families of countless victims, would sleep better at night knowing there is no chance that the worst of these killers will ever again be able to prey on others. Even then, I personally believe that if you choose to take another human life, you ought to be prepared to pay with your own. — John E. Douglas

Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading? — Ayn Rand

A dancer must have tremendous personality. A God like Christ and even a godman like Rajneesh had some personality. Combination of talent, dedication, creativity and being emotive is imperative. A coupling of these four qualities with technique is essential. Monotony is deterrent as it regards your style and I notice today, that new dancers perform in a startlingly similar fashion. — Yamini Krishnamurthy

The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment ... It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society. — Thurgood Marshall

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, and the appeals process is expensive and cruel to the surviving family members. — Martin O'Malley

My main contribution was to demolish the myths that India couldn't economically afford nuclear weapons. Of course I made these political arguments too, but the main contribution I made was a study of the cost of acquiring a credible deterrent, and show that it was within the budget of India, and it would not be an unbearable burden. — Subramanian Swamy

If the same punishment is prescribed for two crimes that injure society in different degrees, then men will face no stronger deterrent from committing the greater crime if they find it in their advantage to do so. — Cesare Beccaria

The evidence is clear that increasing the severity of punishment is a far less effective deterrent than increasing the perception that a person will be caught and sanctioned. With respect to interrogations, experiments reveal the benefits — Anonymous

My biggest deterrent to getting the workout I need is just that my days are so full and so busy. — Christie Brinkley

Chests heaving, she found herself facing Jaro, the slick sheen of blood not a deterrent, not when it proved his valor. Eyes glittering, he took a step toward her, and she must have moved as well because a moment later, she found herself pressed against him, her hands dangling by her sides, still clenching her blades as he caught her lips with his own. Their first kiss. Actually, her only kiss. And oh my, did it ignite the flames of her desire. — Eve Langlais

If you prosecute a CEO or other senior executive and send him or her to jail for committing a crime, the deterrent effect in my view vastly outweighs even the best compliance program you can put in place. — Jed S. Rakoff

The thing that makes countries want to pursue some kind of nuclear deterrent is precisely the fact that they feel threatened. — Stephen M. Walt

Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent. — Leonard Ravenhill

Scaling back the U.S. fleet of 14 nuclear-armed submarines to eight would maintain a robust deterrent at sea while generating billions in savings and easing pressure on the Navy's shipbuilding budget. — Mike Quigley

The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often. — Edward Abbey

I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime ... period. — Troy King

First off, do everything they can to give their kids the opportunities to play sports; asthma is not a deterrent to playing sports. — Dominique Wilkins

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. — Oprah Winfrey

Perimeter greatly reduced the pressure to launch on warning at the first sign of an American attack. It gave Soviet leaders more time to investigate the possibility of a false alarm, confident that a real attack would trigger a computer-controlled, devastating response. But it rendered American plans for limited war meaningless; the Soviet computers weren't programmed to allow pauses for negotiation. And the deterrent value of Perimeter was wasted. Like the doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove, the system was kept secret from the United States. — Eric Schlosser

I came into politics because of a real childhood concern about the Cold War. So to me the importance of the nuclear deterrent is actually really ingrained in me. — Andrea Leadsom

The greatest deterrent to giving is the illusion that this earth is our home. — Randy Alcorn

Our judgement is that the presence of the Royal Marines garrison is sufficient deterrent against any possible aggression. — Margaret Thatcher

Even an inaccurate missile is quite a deterrent. — Caspar Weinberger

Laws must be efficaciously deterrent in nature, and in grave offences where offenders trespass the precincts of being a human, and commit crimes against even babies/infants/children; solely for beastly gratification, deserve no mercy. — Henrietta Newton Martin Legal Consultant

Today the greatest single deterrent to knowledge of Jesus is His familiarity. Because we think we know Him, we pass Him by. — Winifred Kirkland

The Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. — Bernard Lewis

They could take the money from building enough nukes to kill all the Russians in the world and give it to libraries. What good does an independent nuclear deterrent do Britain, compared to the good of libraries? — Jo Walton

The grand deterrent to the seductive pleas was Joseph's awareness that God is present and sees all, and that a sin that no one else knows about, committed behind locked doors in a dark room, is actually committed in the presence of a holy God. — Anonymous

But, if recent history has taught us anything, it's that self-regulation doesn't work in finance, and that worries about reputation are a weak deterrent to corporate malfeasance. — James Surowiecki

Factor 40. It's like rubber cement. It'll take me a good twenty-five minutes to grind this stuff into her skin. I shudder at the thought. Skin should never get old, there's no point to it. Or perhaps it's just an evolutionary deterrent. You've served your biological purpose. You're not supposed to reproduce anymore, so now you get to look like dried fruit until you die. Mom — Graham Parke

Fraud will always exist. Enforcement of anti-fraud laws is a useful deterrent, but in the end there's no substitute for investor vigilance. Government regulations provide a false sense of security - and that's worth less than no sense of security at all. — John Stossel

If you live in a material universe where acquiring things is very important to you, then family is an absolute deterrent to maintaining that sort of a world, because family involves values like affection, and sympathy, and passion, and types of pleasure that lead nowhere in a material sense. — John Taylor Gatto

I do want to be very clear: I see our nuclear deterrent as absolutely core insurance for our national security. — Andrea Leadsom

I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society. I reject the notion that the death penalty has any essential deterrent effect on potential offenders. I am convinced that the contrary is true - that savagery begets only savagery. — Andrei Sakharov

You may also want to look in the mirror and consider the fact that an ugly personality is a far greater deterrent than an ugly face ever could be. — Vi Keeland

When a slave must be executed, the slaves from those plantations nearby are brought to watch; a deterrent, aye? against future ill-considered action." "Indeed," Jamie said politely. "I believe that was the Crown's notion in executing my grandsire on Tower Hill after the Rising. Verra effective, too; all my relations have been quite well behaved since." I had lived long enough among Scots to appreciate the effects of that little jab. Jamie might have come at Campbell's request, but the grandson of the Old Fox did no man's bidding lightly - nor necessarily held English law in high regard. MacNeill had got the message, all right; the back of his neck flushed turkey-red, but Farquard Campbell looked amused. He uttered a short, dry laugh before turning round. — Diana Gabaldon

Armed and law-abiding citizens are a greater deterrent to violent crime than 1,000 laws passed by Congress. — Rick Perry

The will to disbelieve is the strongest deterrent to wider horizons. — Hans Holzer

I know the Muslim psychology. It is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter. — Ali Sina

Overdone lipstick is a deterrent to men. It rubs off easily onto their skin and the edges of their shirts, so it discourages them from kissing, touching, and coming closer to you, which is what they really want to do! — Helen Fisher

Fear is one of the elements of nonlethal weaponry. You're going to get hurt, and you don't want to get hurt. Pepper spray hurts. You don't want to be sprayed. That's why it's a useful deterrent as a nonlethal weapon - I'm not advocating spraying people randomly. — Greg Rucka

Bodyguard work came easily to hobgoblins. When you're huge, furry, fanged, and yellow-eyed, you don't need much else as a deterrent. — Lisa Shearin

The great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre — Elizabeth Hardwick