Punishment is lame, but it comes.—George Herbert.
If punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender.—Locke.
Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?—George Eliot.
The work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.—Goldsmith.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.—Cato.
The best of us being unfit to die, what an inexpressible absurdity to put the worst to death!—Hawthorne.
Puns.—I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them: it is a radically bad race of wit.—Sydney Smith.
Conceits arising from the use of words that agree in sound but differ in sense.—Addison.
Purposes.—Man proposes, but God disposes.—Thomas à Kempis.
A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.—Bible.