FastSaying

The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.

Henry Louis Mencken

Henry Louis Mencken

Punishment

Related Quotes

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented
— Henry Louis Mencken
CrimePunishmentTheory
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
— Henry Louis Mencken
FearKillingMorality
War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands
— Henry Louis Mencken
BabiesWarWill
Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.
— Henry Louis Mencken
IncomeWealth
The American people, taken one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the middle ages
— Henry Louis Mencken
America And AmericansPeople