Texas is not a civilized place. Texans shoot one another a lot. They also knife, razor, and stomp one another to death with some frequency. And they fight in bars all the time.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

Many a man spanks his children for things his own father should have spanked out of him.

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.

The fact that the beating had not hurt was a sort of victory and partially wiped out the shame of the bed-wetting. I was even incautious enough to wear a grin on my face.

The first of all laws is to respect the laws: the severity of penalties is only a vain resource, invented by little minds in order to substitute terror for that respect which they have no means of obtaining.

Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.

He only may chastise who loves.

While punishing a recalcitrant pupil he suffered; he did not allow it to show because he did not want us to think him weak. He revealed himself only to God.