The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes.

The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful.

Laws against the possession of weapons only disarm those who have no intention of committing a crime.

The fault no child ever loses is the one he was most punished for.

Happy is the nation without a history.

happy is the nation without a history

The greatest happiness of the greatest number.

I myself owe everything to French books. They developed in my soul the sentiments of humanity which had been stifled by eight years of fanatical and servile education.

The less their ability, the more their conceit.

Expose yourself to as much as possible. Attend conferences no one else is attending. Read books no one else is reading. Talk to people no one else is talking to.

It is extremely difficult to do anything constructive, let alone deep, on daily commercial television, especially on a talk show.

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

Passing is contagious. There's nothing better than making the pass that gives someone an easy hoop.

I've been acting my whole life, which people don't realize. I just haven't had the opportunities that I've had with my dancing.

Poverty, I realized, wasn't only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could help you make more of yourself.

Except I didn't say eff

In today's economy there are no experts, no 'best and brightest' with all the answers. It's up to each one of us. The only way to screw up is to not try anything.