Promises were like laws; smart men knew when to break both.
-C. J. Hill
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
By degrees, little by little, from time to time, a wise person should remove his own impurities as a smith removes the dross from silver.
I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one... That is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.
-Mother Teresa
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.