"Young people don't always do what they're told, but if they can pull it off and do something wonderful, sometimes they escape punishment. "
— Rick Riordan

"The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else."
— George Bernard Shaw

"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.
"
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men."
— George Bernard Shaw

"And if there's bad behaviour," Mma Potokwane went on. "If there's bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love. That always works, you know. People say we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you're only punishing yourself. And what's the point of that?"
— Alexander McCall Smith (The Good Husband of Zebra Drive)

"Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse."
— Thomas More (Utopia)

"Was I really seeking good, or just seeking attention? Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice-cold eye? If that's all good deeds are, maybe that's the reason why no good deed goes unpunished. [Elphaba/the Wicked Witch of the West]"
— Steven Schwartz Wicked the musical

"[Referring to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde] ... Will civilization never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not understand and which hold forth for them no temptation? Did Jesus suffer in vain?"
— Frank Harris (Oscar Wilde)

"I stood behind the man’s chair, my blade at his throat.
“Why do you do it?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer. “Kill people, and blow up buildings, and sell drugs?”
It was what they all did. Committed crimes. That was why I killed them.
“You’re a criminal, a terrorist, a danger. And I have been asked to take you out.” I told him.
I was legend now, yet he asked the same question all the others did.
“What is your name?”
My sensitive ears tuned out the slit as my sword cut his neck.
I walked around the chair to see his face. I watched as his eyes–slowly at first–changed from blue to milky white. His skin went pale.
And as I heard him take his last breath, I ducked in so my lips hovered at his ear, and whispered, “My name, is Sharden.”"
— Alysha Speer (Sharden)

"All attempts at law, all religion, all ethical norms might be nothing more than attempts by the weak to restrain the strong. Then, within the law, arise the new strong, who subvert the law for their own ends of power and family interest, leaving the old strong outside their circle to pursue the waiting possibilities which they call crime. The weak, the cowardly, the decent ones, live between these groups."
— George Zebrowski (Brute Orbits)

"Curious, the pleasure it gives me to annoy practitioners of force. Do I actually want this Herr Benjamenta to punish me? Do I have reckless instincts? Everything is possible, everything, even the most sordid and undignified things."
— Robert Walser (Jakob von Gunten)

"You must suffer me to go my own dark way. "
— Robert Louis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"this is her penance for marrying for love"
— Sandra Cisneros

""You don't have to teach me to write," said Zero. "Just to read. I don't have anybody to write to."
"Sorry," Stanley said again.
His muscles and hands weren't the only parts of his body that had toughened over the past several weeks. His heart had hardened as well.""
— Louis Sachar