Punishing Quotes & Sayings

[Confiscating a book and punishing its author] is a sign that one does not have a good case, or at least doesn't trust it enough to defend it with reasons and refute the objections. Some people even go so far as to consider prohibited or confiscated books to be the best ones of all, for the prohibition indicates that their authors wrote what they really thought rather than what they were supposed to think ... — Laszlo Radvanyi

Perhaps that was his way of punishing himself. Masochism. People torture themselves more terribly than anyone else could. — Damon Suede

Just like you can't punish anyone without punishing yourself, you can't love anyone without loving yourself. — Debasish Mridha

Armies have spent a lot of time and effort training their soldiers not to think of the enemy as human beings. It's so much easier to kill them if you think of them as dangerous animals. The trouble is, war isn't about killing. It's about getting the enemy to stop resisting your will. Like training a dog not to bite. Punishing him leaves you with a beaten dog. Killing him is a permanent solution, but you've got no dog. If you can understand why he's biting and remove the conditions that make him bite, sometimes that can solve the problem as well. The dog isn't dead. He isn't even your enemy. — Orson Scott Card

I go to the gym a lot, and I see these guys, these young actors or models there, really punishing themselves - I mean, just killing themselves. And then I'll see one of them on a billboard, with the artfully messy hair, looking as though it's just natural and easy to have a body like that. — Bronson Pinchot

It was a punishing whim on my part, a nasty, selfish twist of the knife. — Gillian Flynn

If you punish the banks, all you are doing is reducing the banks' capital, which you want to increase, and punishing shareholders, who have done nothing wrong. — Nigel Lawson

I used to feel compelled to respond. Once I contacted the author of a list of "Ugliest Former Child Actors" to ask her why, as a woman, she was punishing other women for the way they looked. She wrote back immediately to apologise. "I write stupid things on the internet to pay the bills," she said. "I can't afford integrity. — Mara Wilson

What they don't know is, no matter how they decide, they can't penalize me more than I'm already punishing myself. — Ann Aguirre

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief. — James Russell Lowell

How fabulous down was for those first minutes! Down, down, down I'd go until down too became impossible and punishing and so relentless that I'd pray for the trail to go back up. Going down, I realized was like taking hold of the loose strand of yarn on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost. — Cheryl Strayed

She promised new, tantalizing diversions. She whispered words of raw, intense pleasure the likes of which he'd never experienced. He was intrigued. She had the power to drag his mind into his body and keep it there, unable to think or worry. And that was how he found himself in the basement of her town house in Toronto, naked, restrained, and on his knees. She confused his senses by both pleasing and punishing him. With every strike, all his emotional pain seemed to bleed away. His single errant thought was why had he waited so long to use physical pain to alleviate his mental suffering. But even that thought was soon forgotten. — Sylvain Reynard

Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Remembering your mistakes more acutely than any minor success. This was the worst. The things that kept you up at night. Tip a waiter that was too small. The words that didn't fit the moment. Words that didn't come till to late. You could kill yourself in increments, punishing your spirit day after day-regret. Guilt. Not the guilt of the little girl who woke in the night embarrassed God was mad at her because she had ticked balls under her shirt, pretending to have breasts. "I even felt sexy." That was sweet, and pure, no crime at all. But the crime of obsessive replay-get rid of it, get rid of it. Who could ever have known that hardest punishments would be the ones you gave yourself? — Naomi Shihab Nye

The biggest mistake in puppy training, which is also the most common one, is punishing the dog for bad behavior. — Vivaco Books

You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it's time you flipped this little scenario in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you? demands Haymitch.
I fall silent. It isn't. It isn't how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn. — Suzanne Collins

Let no one dare to call another mad who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his own offenses. — Margaret Fuller

Be willing to stop punishing yourself for your mistakes. Love yourself for your willingness to learn and grow. — Louise Hay

Eve started in on his jeans, obviously knowing he was commando as usual by grasping his penis and pulling it free without hesitation.
She went down on him hard. It was like she was punishing her mouth for wanting him as much as she did. Driving the car while Eve expertly handled his stick made him feel so powerful, he wanted to head butt the windshield. — Debra Anastasia

The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

[E]conomic liberty and creative entrepreneurship are the basis of any solution to today's social and economic difficulties. Blaming business, setting wages, and attempting to run the economy by decree from Washington only exacerbates the problems. Consider the minimum wage. It seems so simple: Tell business to pay its workers more. But a hike in the minimum wage is essentially a tax, punishing precisely those companies that hire workers with the least skills. — Doug Bandow

We are all brothers, and yet I live by receiving a salary for arraigning, judging and punishing a thief or a prostitute, whose existence is conditioned by the whole consumption of my life. — Leo Tolstoy

Since civilizing children takes the better part of two decades
some twenty years of nonstop thinking, nurturing, teaching, coaxing, rewarding, forgiving, warning, punishing, sympathizing, apologizing, reminding, and repeating, not to mention deciding what to do when
I now understand that one wrong move is invariably followed by hundreds of opportunities to be wrong again. — Mary Blakely

I glanced at the contents of what I was photocopying. They were the rules of the golf club of which Mister Saito was a member. I started to laugh.
The next minute I felt more like crying, thinking about all the innocent trees that my superior was wasting to chastise me. I imagined the forests of the Japan of my childhood - maples, cedars, and ginkgoes - felled for the sole purpose of punishing a creature as insignificant as myself. I remembered, again, that Fubuki's family name meant forest. — Amelie Nothomb

Look at me and don't stop." He tightened his hands under my ass cheeks and started pumping into me. Hard. Deep. Punishing really but I didn't care. I wanted this from him as I stared into eyes burning blue fire at me. "Ethan! — Raine Miller

If you have suffered the loss of a family member to chronic disease, if you suffer debilitating seasons of depression, if you have lost your job and livelihood, gone through a divorce that came out of the blue, know that God is not punishing you. He is not waiting for you to do something. — Tullian Tchividjian

Each day, it seemed, another law was passed to impoverish and diminish them, punishing them for whatever success they achieved and rewarding their less competent and industrious neighbors. — L. Neil Smith

Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting. — Khaled Hosseini

We see what a punishing business it is, simply being alive. — Sarah Waters

I love you." The words were a curse, harsh and punishing. "I can't change it and I don't want to. You're it for me." Angelo's body shook between Gabe's legs. "I gave you my heart in that fucking interrogation room, cop, yet you've been holding yours hostage from me."
He pulled his head back, eyes over-bright, lips red and swollen. "I want those words. I deserve those words." His voice wobbled and broke. "I demand those words. I need them. — Avril Ashton

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. — Sarah Kendzior

And one of the most serious things for me has been the understanding that the Universe is not that interested in punishing us. Every move we make is simply part of its reflection. — Alice Walker

You know you're in trouble when your own imagination starts punishing you. — Eoin Colfer

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn't. — Alan Cohen

Why do you do these things to yourself? Not just what you did to the window, but the way you talked to Clary. What are you punishing yourself for? You can't help how you feel. — Cassandra Clare

He shook his head. No games, Serena. That isn't what this is about. If you want games of cat and mouse, disobedient slave to punishing master, you're better off with someone else. As much as this is a fantasy and not your reality, in the time you're with me, it will be real. In all ways. — Maya Banks

Motivation 2.0 is similar. At its heart are two elegant and simple ideas: Rewarding an activity will get you more of it. Punishing an activity will get you less of it. — Daniel H. Pink

He kissed her like he owned her, and in that moment, he did. The kiss was rough and punishing, his tongue forcing her lips open and sweeping into her mouth with greedy precision. Electricity raced up Bailey's spine, red-hot and powerful, as powerful as the deep strokes of Sean's tongue and his tight grip on her waist.
"You want me," he muttered into her lips... — Elle Kennedy

Matilda longed for her parents to be good and loving and understanding and honourable and intelligent. The fact that they were none of these things was something she had to put up with. It was not easy to do so. But the new game she had invented of punishing one or both of them each time they were beastly to her made her life more or less bearable. Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power. For sheer cleverness she could run rings around them all. But the fact remained that any five-year-old girl in any family was always obliged to do as she was told, however asinine the orders might be. — Roald Dahl

Stop punishing yourself for things not accomplish yet in life. As long as there is life, there is hope. It is important for you to value who you are by the grace of God. Now, get set to improve that value! — Israelmore Ayivor

Fellow senators balked at punishing Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York though he was caught in a series of transactions that earned him the label "Senator Sleaze." D'Amato explained their reluctance as he defended his own behavior. "There but for the grace of God go most of my colleagues," he said. — William Greider

I think I was punishing Dante. He had given me a piece of himself that he had never given to another human being. And I hadn't even bothered to look at it. Why was I doing that? — Anonymous

I really loved Andy Kaufman growing up, like every comedy person does. I like when sometimes the audience isn't quite sure what's supposed to be happening right then and that sort of unsafe feeling, as long as you're not punishing them. — Mike O'Brien

pg. 301--"Saturday the weather couldn't decide if it was ready to fully entertain winter or if we were still stuck in the fall."
pg.349--"...winter showed up in an angry, punishing fury... — W. Bruce Cameron

Actually, it's not the impertinence I'm punishing him for, it's that he let other people know what he wanted. — Douglas Coupland

It seems that sin is geographical. From this conclusion, it is only a small step to the further conclusion that the notion of 'sin' is illusory, and that the cruelty habitually practised in punishing it is unnecessary. — Bertrand Russell

Fine." My fingers felt cold and clumsy as I fumbled to untie the straps that held my sword to the side of the pack. Suddenly I felt something harshly cold against my neck. I turned my head in slow motion and looked up the length of a very sharp blade.
"Lovely." Kieran's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I'm sure an enemy would have too much honor to attack you until you're ready. That must be why you're completely unprotected and paying no attention whatsoever." He glared at me for a long punishing moment. Then he eased the sword back and inch. "Lesson one. Stay on guard." Reaching past me, he flicked the tip of his sword and easily sliced the ties on my pack. — Sharon Hinck

Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty. — P. J. O'Rourke

But she hadn't expected this: this stupid hope, this punishing one, for who would long to see someone who was already lost? What good would it have done?
None.
Apparently Arin knew this, too. He knew it better than she, or his hope would have been equal to hers, and would have driven him here. — Marie Rutkoski

In the 1990s, Elinor Ostrom, the American political scientist most responsible for reviving serious thought about commons, studies what specifically makes a commons successful. She concluded that a commons must have an evolving set of rules about access and usage and that it must have a way of punishing transgressions. It must also respect the particular character of the resource being managed and the people who have worked with that resource the longest. — Douglas Rushkoff

Is this possible? To spend a life punishing people who will never know they have been punished? So — Umberto Eco

Training a dog, to me, is on a par with learning to dance with my wife or teaching my son to ski. These are fun things we do together. If anyone even talks about dominating the dog or hurting him or fighting him or punishing him, don't go there. — Ian Dunbar

What really drives the battle against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment, but the widely held view that, first, we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs; second, drug and other criminal sentences are too long and harsh, and third, the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time. — John P. Walters

You said that love could not be feigned and could not be stolen" she said passionately. "And now you say I am to be your queen. And yet you imprison me and give me no freedom. You know what it is like to be caged, It is a death. You tell me I cannot hide from you and yet you punish me for hiding.You say you do not want me to fear you and you treat me like I am a slave. Forgive me my Lord"-and here she bowed her head sadly, contrite and meek-"I don not understand why you are punishing me for something you say I cannot do. I do not understand your love, if this is the love you offer me. — Alison Croggon

God wants to help us to eventually turn all of our weaknesses into strengths,1 but He knows that this is a long-term goal. He wants us to become perfect,2 and if we stay on the path of discipleship, one day we will. It's OK that you're not quite there yet. Keep working on it, but stop punishing yourself. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The death of Christ proclaimed the justice and perpetuity of his Father's law in punishing the transgressor, in that he consented to suffer the penalty of the law himself, in order to save fallen man from its curse. — Ellen G. White

Big companies are reliant on institutional investors on a punishing schedule which leads to ruthless behaviour. This form of capitalism with this structure and incentives will never deliver sustainability. — Tim Jackson

Worrying about outcomes over which I have no control is punishing myself before the universe has decided whether I ought to be punished. — Sherry Thomas

I don't believe in waiting for a horse to do the wrong thing and then punishing him after the fact. You can't just say no to a horse. You have to redirect a negative behavior with a positive one, something that works for both of you. It's as though you're saying - instead of doing that, we can do this together. — Buck Brannaman

Almost any football play, even an off-tackle slant by a running back, offers the balletic beauty of athletic skill and the punishing drama of physical collision. — Richard Corliss

Law of Attraction is not punishing you. Law of Attraction is supporting you with evidence of your vibrational frequency. — Esther Hicks

You have to reward them when they do what you want. I tried punishing them when they misbehaved, but the hammer seemed to crush their spirit. — Christopher Moore

Their Christian walk was such that it convinced even their most bitter foes of the sincerity and wholeheartedness of their faith and practice. The foes saw faith working powerfully through love, demonstrated in their straightforward business dealings, charitable deeds to the poor, visiting and comforting the sick and oppressed educating the ignorant, convincing the erring, punishing the wicked, reproving the idle, and encouraging the devout. And all this was done with diligence and sensitivity, as well as joy, peace, and happiness, such that it was obvious that the Lord was truly with them. — Willem Teellinck

Maybe the witch thought she was protecting Rapunzel, not punishing her. Maybe she thought that if Rapunzel was locked away, no one could ever hurt her. Maybe the witch kept Rapunzel because she loved her, because she was scared that if other people could get to Rapunzel, they would hurt her. And maybe Rapunzel didn't understand the witch; maybe she was angry at her - but maybe she loved her too. — Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try - by punishing the troublesome - to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously. — Barbara Deming

If you carry around a lot of suppressed or repressed anger (anger you have unconsciously buried) you may lash out at people, blaming or punishing them for something someone else did a long time ago. Because you were unwilling or unable to express how you felt in the past, you may overreact in the present, damaging a relationship. — Beverly Engel

A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Every trauma provides an opportunity for authentic transformation. Trauma amplifies and evokes the expansion and contraction of psyche, body, and soul. It is how we respond to a traumatic event that determines whether trauma will be a cruel and punishing Medusa turning us into stone, or whether it will be a spiritual teacher taking us along vast and uncharted pathways. In the Greek myth, blood from Medusa's slain body was taken in two vials; one vial had the power to kill, while the other had the power to resurrect. If we let it, trauma has the power to rob our lives of vitality and destroy it. However, we can also use it for powerful self-renewal and transformation. Trauma, resolved, is a blessing from a greater power. — Ann Frederick

What kind of expression is this - "punishing Israel"? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don't behave properly, are slapped across the fingers? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with "punishments." He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments. You have no right to "punish" Israel - and I protest at the very use of this term. — Menachem Begin

You know where the people who killed people in San Bernardino came from. You know where people who did 9/11 came from. You know where the people who did Paris came from, where they transited, where they went. None of them even set foot in Iran. So why are you punishing people who are visiting Iran for that? ... We're not going to radicalize them. We never have. Your allies have radicalized people who visited. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Punishing abuse in Iraq should not return the U.S. to Sept. 10, 2001, in the way it fights al Qaeda, while Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants remain at large and continue to plan attacks. — John Yoo

It was about knowing you were going to be underestimated by everyone and then punishing them for those very thoughts. — Carrie Brownstein

Punishing a person for the wrongs of another makes about as much sense as throwing up to enjoy the meal a second time. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered. — William J. Brennan

But I figured out after a while that I couldn't spend my life punishing everyone who deserved to be punished."

"So you just forgive them?" Diana said.

He shrugged. "I guess so. Not because they deserve to be forgiven. They don't. It's just that when you go around hating people and wanting to hurt them... You just can't do that. That isn't life. You forgive them so you can live. — Katherine Applegate

[He] would drive his sculling boat through mile after mile, in a silent brutal programe of conditioning - he would work all alone, at first light, punishing himself without mercy. His was the private dignity of the lone athlete, with a grim purpose, fighting a solitary war with himself, toward a goal only he can see. — Daniel Topolski

If we do not design policies to halt, and then reverse population growth, Nature by default will soon exact a most punishing solution — Fred Thompson

In Connecticut, for example, a man confessed to having had sexual relations with a variety of animals since the age of ten; Massachusetts executed several teenage boys for buggery. Sexual relations with animals required harsh punishment, for colonists believed that these unions could have reproductive consequences. The mating of humans and animals, they feared, would produce monstrous offspring. For this reason, colonists insisted on punishing not only the man but also the beast, who might bear such monsters. — John D'Emilio

In what world did you think you could get away with this?" Jalal seethed. "To my cousin? To my family?" His gleaming hilt continued its punishing onslaught. — Renee Ahdieh

do not know the answer. So I have returned to the things I do know. We are children of God. God is holy. He is merciful. But he is also just. He does not delight in punishing his own. So this . . . this indiscretion was serious in the eyes of God. More serious than we as his creatures might have made it to be. Had God ignored it, would one lie have grown into two? Multiplied many times over? What would the end have been? Total disregard for who God is? Would we, as his people, eventually lose all proper holy fear? — Janette Oke

Training need not be an all-or-nothing battle, involving punishing track practice, grueling calisthenics, and wrenching interval sessions every afternoon. It could be a fun and easy cruise through the gorgeous New England countryside. It could be an act of freedom by which I could step outside myself and my racing mind. A long run in nature could even be a way to connect my physical body with the unseen spirit of the universe. — Bill Rodgers

What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters? — Khalil

When you get your powers, you learn a lot about yourself. My professors called me mad. It was time for me to stop punishing myself, and start punishing everybody else. — Austin Grossman

International affairs will be placed on a better footing when it is understood that there is no way of punishing a people for the crimes of its rulers. — Bernard Berenson

In The Lost Message of Jesus I claim that penal substitution is tantamount to 'child abuse - a vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed.' Though the sheer bluntness of this imagery (not original to me of course) might shock some, in truth, it is only a stark 'unmasking' of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such a theology. — Steve Chalke

It is not like that. I am not punishing myself. The cutting makes me feel better." "Hurting — Zoe Marriott

All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy - making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Good discipline is more than just punishing or laying down the law. It is liking children and letting them see that they are liked. It is caring enough about them to provide good, clear rules for their protection. — Stanley Greenspan

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure. — Jesse Eisenberg

The body can't distinguish between cleansing and punishing for the body is ignorant, and mute besides. — Joyce Carol Oates

We all know showbiz isn't easy, but being a comic - especially being a female comic - can be quite punishing. — Judy Gold

In spite of what youngsters think, parents do not get a sneaky thrill out of punishing their children. — Eoin Colfer

The reaction of whatever you do will continue punishing you (hold you accountable). I do not have to come to punish you," says God. — Dada Bhagwan

Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, 'There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. — Thomas More

The mad sometimes drilled holes in their own heads to let the demons out. To relieve the pressure of thoughts they could no longer bear. Jude understood the impulse. Each beat of his heart was a fresh and staggering blow felt in the nerves behind his eyes and in his temples. Punishing evidence of life. — Joe Hill

If you think that you can stop crime by catching us, locking us up, punishing us by brutal treatment, hanging or electrocuting us, sterilizing or castrating us, then you are a fool for thinking that way. That only makes bad matters worse. — Carl Panzram

Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide. — Barbara Deming

See that any time you feel pained or defeated, it is only because you insist on clinging to what doesn't work. Dare to let go and you won't lose a thing except for a punishing idea. — Guy Finley

Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity. — Johannes Voet

The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead. — Christopher Hitchens