Offenses Quotes

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. ~ Stacy Schiff

[On Jerry Falwell] No, and I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to ... The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. ~ Christopher Hitchens

To meditate, stew, and brew on too many negative thoughts, distorts and super-sizes offenses and causes anger. ~ Stephen L. Bowen

How easily a fathers tenderness is recalled, and how quickly a son's offenses vanish at the slightest word of repentance! ~ Moliere

No longer was a defection, a leaked document, or some other treasonous act a prerequisite for being deemed an SP, though only serious offenses like those would seem to merit such severe condemnation. It meant, after all, expulsion from the church and the loss of salvation - a severe penalty. But now anyone who expressed even the smallest criticism of church policy or leadership was in danger of being cast out. ~ Janet Reitman

Social Note: I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, the shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve. ~ John Kennedy Toole

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence, we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. ~ Francis Of Assisi

Those who easily forgive invite offenses. ~ Pierre Corneille

MS. THOMPSON, it said in heavy block letters, PLEASE KEEP YOUR FELINE OFF MY PROPERTY. IF I SEE IT AGAIN, I WILL EAT IT. ~ Patricia Briggs

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding - certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever. ~ Jane Austen

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offenses against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Nour El Dine felt much more comfortable with the vagabonds, the rabble born to commit sordid offenses. At least you could frighten them. But these disreputable intellectuals were forever breaking down all sense of authority in him. Nour El Dine considered himself a reasonable being; that is, he believed in the existence of the government and in the speeches pronounced by ministers. He had blind faith in the institutions of the civilized world. The attitude of Yeghen and his fellow men always disconcerted him; they appeared not to realize that there was a government. They were not against the government; they simply were not aware of it. ~ Albert Cossery

After the survivor of the Spanish conquest has told his life's story he is convicted by the Inquisition: He posted no brief in defense or mitigation of his offenses, and when he was most solemnly advised by the Court President of the dire consequences he faced if found guilty, Juan Damasceno volunteered only one comment: "It will mean I do not go to the Christian heaven?" He was told that that would indeed be the worst of his punishments: that he would most assuredly not go to Heaven. At which, his smile sent a thrill of horror through every soul of the Court. ~ Gary Jennings

Many of the sisters were Black and poor and from D.C., where every crime is a violation of a federal statute. They were beautiful sisters, serving outrageous sentences for minor offenses. ~ Assata Shakur

Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974. ~ Gerald R. Ford

He would punish him for his impertinence. He would cane him right away, the second they left the room, then spend the rest of the day rubbing his raw wounds to remind him of the gravity of his offenses. But come nighttime, he would hug him tight to his chest to make Dorian understand that he would never, ever let him go as long as he had the strength to draw breath. ~ Valentina C. Brin

Some offenses will be more challenging than those for which we've been trained. This extra strain may cause ~ John Bevere

Correction is not displaying your anger at their offenses; it is rather reminding them that their sinful behavior offends God. ~ Tedd Tripp

The irony of the present day is, the more human rights jurisprudence seems to be fortified, the more there are human rights violations in newer and newer forms and some recidivism all due to the conflicting deductions of protecting even human rights of offenders. No doubts offenders deserve their rights to be protected but in cases of serious offenses such as 'rape' where the offender consciously commits the act while being aware of the justice system in his particular country, prefers to cross the precincts of the law. Worst still, is increasing crime rate of offenses such as rape committed against children and infants. ~ Henrietta Newton Martin

There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial for political offenses, the nationalization or expropriation of private property, and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw. ~ Ayn Rand

Tell me about your children," he said.
"What would you like to know?"
"Anything. How did you decide on their names?"
"Justin was named after my husband's favorite uncle- a dear old bachelor who always brought him books when he was ill. My younger son, Stephen, was named after a character in an adventure novel Lord Clare and I read when we were children."
"What was the title?"
"I can't tell you; you'll think it's silly. It is silly. But we both loved it. We read it dozens of times. I had to send Henry my copy, after-"
After you stole his.
In Henry's view, the worst of West Ravenel's offenses had been stealing his copy of Stephen Armstrong: Treasure Hunter from a box of possessions beneath his bed at school. Although there had never been proof of the thief's identity, Henry had remembered that Ravenel had previously mocked him when he'd seen him reading it. "I know he's the one," Henry had written. "He's probably done something awful with it. Dropped it down the privy. I'd be surprised if the nincompoop can even read."
"Someday when we're big," Phoebe had written in response, full of righteous vengeance, "we'll go thrash him together and take it back from him."
But now she was sitting next to him at dinner.
"-after he lost his copy," she finished awkwardly. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Don't forget what people intend to use for harm, God can use for His greater good. Let offenses slide today, and watch how God works! ~ Alisa Hope Wagner

And trying to break it down this way, to minor and major offenses, maybes and what-ifs, was like arguing over the origin of cracks in a broken egg. It was done. How it happened didn't matter anymore. ~ Sarah Dessen

Hope is the strongest driving force for a people. Hope which brings about change, which produces new realities, is what opens man's road to freedom. Once hope has taken hold, courage must unite with wisdom. That is the only way of avoiding violence, the only way of maintaining the calm one needs to respond peacefully to offenses. ~ Oscar Arias

Billions of dollars, trying unsuccessfully to keep drugs out of the world's most porous border? One-tenth of the anti-drug budget going into education and treatment, nine-tenths of those billions into interdiction? And not enough money from anywhere going into the root causes of the drug problem itself. And the billions spent keeping drug offenders locked up in prison, the cells now so crowded we have to give early release to murderers. Not to mention the fact that two-thirds of all the "non-drug" offenses in America are committed by people high on dope or alcohol. And our solutions are the same futile non-solutions - build more prisons, hire more police, spend more and more billions of dollars not curing the symptoms while we ignore the disease. Most people in my area who want to kick drugs can't afford to get into a treatment program unless they have blue-chip health insurance, which most of them don't. And there's a six-month-to-two-year waiting list to get a bed in a subsidized treatment program. We're spending almost $2 billion poisoning cocaine crops and kids over here, while there's no money at home to help someone who wants to get off drugs. It's insanity. ~ Don Winslow

How insane we are as humans when having received a nasty offense we return the same awful offense. If given an apple found to be rotten and wormy, would we not toss it aside rather than force a soul to eat it? Offenses should be discarded, not returned. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The expectations are that when this investigation is completed, Fitzgerald will make the appropriate decision, which is not to charge Karl with any criminal offenses. ~ Robert Luskin

If police officers routinely issue tickets for the most serious traffic offenses, they'll be treating drivers of all races, sexes, and ages equally. ~ Bill Dedman

People who are easily offended should live on an island to avoid offenses! ~ Mary Hall-Rayford

In the old days, you would have one lawyer to handle everything: speeding tickets, buying a house, contracts, litigation, real estate, copyrights, leasing, entertainment, intellectual property, forensic accounting, criminal offenses ... the list goes on. Now, you have to have a separate lawyer for each one of those categories! ~ James Belushi

White Americans cannot deny their long history of abusive transactions with people of color. These offenses, it should be noted out of fairness, can be explained in part by the fact that no other sizable national state has ever been formed from the confluence of so many diverse ethnic streams. All our heterogeneous ferment no doubt made contentiousness inevitable. ~ Richard Kluger

The Constitution gives us a standard to follow. We cannot define impeachable offenses to a greater degree than the language of the Constitution. But we all agree the issue is the public trust. Our duty is not to punish anyone. And our challenge is to avoid pettiness. ~ Asa Hutchinson

Shakespeare himself spoke of Heaven using wars as a punishment for perversities, lusts and passive barbarianism: If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to calm these vile offenses, It will come Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offenses, and they cannot hurt your feelings. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

I regretted what a serious teenager I'd been: There were no posters of pop stars or favorite movies, no girlish collection of photos or corsages. Instead there were paintings of sailboats, proper pastel pastorals, a portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. The latter was particularly strange, since I'd known little about Mrs. Roosevelt, except that she was good, which at the time I suppose was enough. Given my druthers now, I'd prefer a snapshot of Warren Harding's wife, "the Duchess," who recorded the smallest offenses in a little red notebook and avenged herself accordingly. Today I like my first ladies with a little bite. ~ Gillian Flynn

In the US the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed. ~ George Ryan

Most people spend the majority of their lives in fear, focused on themselves, casting everyone around them as bad guys. They almost can't help it, because it happens subconsciously and they don't know any other way to be. When you understand that most human behavior is driven by fear, you will understand why people hurt or offend you. You will understand it isn't about you at all. Their bad behavior is caused by their fear of failure and loss. ~ Kimberly Giles

Any attempt to ease guilt by justification is false. That the crimes of another appease none of one's own offenses. That, if one is being truthful, the greater pain is that of the offender. I know now that I would much rather be a victim of violence than a perpetrator ~ Frank Delaney

Given my druthers now, I'd prefer a snapshot of Warren Harding's wife, "the Duchess," who recorded the smallest offenses in a little red notebook and avenged herself accordingly. Today I like my first ladies with a little bite. I ~ Gillian Flynn

MEDITATION ON THE BUS. Rainy and cold. Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others, it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them. ~ Dorothy Day

Petty theft, murder, forgery, arson, and the abduction of women were all capital offenses, so the death penalty for heresy was neither unusual nor extreme.50 ~ Karen Armstrong

Yet, when child sex offenders are brought to justice and serve time for their offenses, they are often released into unsuspecting communities and left free to resume their sexual attacks. ~ Bob Ney

Father and son had been on poor terms (even Cicero acknowledged this) and it was arranged for the young man to be accused of parricide. This was among the most serious offenses in the charge book and was one of the few crimes to attract the death penalty under Roman law. The method of execution was extremely unpleasant. An ancient legal authority described what took place: According to the custom of our ancestors it was established that the parricide should be beaten with blood-red rods, sewn in a leather sack together with a dog [an animal despised by Greeks and Romans], a cock [like the parricide devoid of all feelings of affection], a viper [whose mother was supposed to die when it was born], and an ape [a caricature of a man], and the sack thrown into the depths of the sea or a river. ~ Anthony Everitt

God's wrath is not an implacable, blind rage. However emotional it may be, it is an entirely reasonable and willed response to offenses against his holiness. But his love ... wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God ~ D. A. Carson

After all, a society with such an enlightened tolerance of corruption and savagery needed to bear down hard on minor offenses to convince itself that it still had standards. ~ Dean Koontz

Never do a single thing in the anticipation to prove something to someone who has hurt you. If someone has hurt or offended you (whoever that person may be), never perform anything or strive for anything in your life with the mind of proving something to that someone/ to those people. May nothing that you do be done with any thought of them in mind. There is nothing that needs to be proven. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Between the time of Jesus and the 20th century, 19 million people were executed for trivial offenses.68 ~ Steven Pinker

That it's not what they do that bothers us: that's a problem for their minds, not ours. It's our own misperceptions. Discard them. Be willing to give up thinking of this as a catastrophe ... and your anger is gone. How do you do that? By recognizing that you've suffered no disgrace. Unless disgrace is the only thing that can hurt you, you're doomed to commit innumerable offenses - to become a thief, or heaven only knows what else. ~ Marcus Aurelius

The person who is living by grace sees this vast contrast between his own sins against God and the offenses of others against him. He forgives others because he himself has been so graciously forgiven. He realizes that, by receiving God's forgiveness through Christ, he has forfeited the right to be offended when others hurt him. ~ Jerry Bridges

I don't think Kenya is the only country that tries to induce amnesia - it seems to be a global phenomenon. But offenses do not die. They do not disappear. ~ Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

When I interview people accused of capital offenses, I never even ask if they did it. I would consider that unprofessional. ~ Joseph Wambaugh

I wasn't good enough to forgive offenses, but eventually I always forgot them. ~ Albert Camus

What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them. ~ Bartolome De Las Casas

in wildernesses where weather and gravity create dire consequences for the smallest of offenses, it only takes a few outlaws to bring mayhem and disaster. ~ Michael Kodas

The further south the throng went, the more reasons it discovered. Vendettas once sworn for half-forgotten offenses were remembered and invented with each passing blow. Everyone felt like a conduit of justice. ~ Adam Levin

Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are the prime reason that the U.S. prison population has ballooned since the 1980s to over 2.5 million people, a nearly 300% increase. We now lock up one out of every hundred adults, far more than any other country. ~ Piper Kerman

Even a member of the state district attorney's office, Keva Landrum-Johnson, had sent a letter urging the federal Department of Justice to become involved. "More likely than not, the court will quash the indictments and the State will be left with no viable option other than to recharge some or all of the defendants on lesser offenses," Landrum-Johnson wrote presciently on August 8, 2008, five days before Judge Bigelow did just that. "Admittedly, my office bears much of the responsibility for the position we are in now." Landrum-Johnson, ~ Ronnie Greene

And for more egregious offenses, you need to get rid of the knave, quickly. Think ~ Eric Schmidt

The plea agreement negotiated by Janet Reno's Justice Department with Nora, Gene and Trisha Lum is a hoax. It allows two key players in the campaign finance scandal to plead to lesser offenses and effectively concludes a serious investigation that, if taken to a conclusion, could have seriously affected the Clinton Administration's claim that it committed no illegalities in the campaign finance scandal. Nora Lum was a close confidant of Ron Brown and remains close to John Huang. Trisha Lum, her daughter, worked for Brown at the Commerce Department and worked on trade missions. ~ Larry Klayman

As journalist Matt Taibbi recalls in his book The Divide: It's become cliché by now, but since 2008, no high-ranking executive from any financial institution has gone to jail, not one, for any of the systemic crimes that wiped out 40 percent of the world's wealth. Even now, after JP Morgan Chase agreed to a settlement north of $13 billion for a variety of offenses.… the basic principle held true: nobody went to jail. Not one person. (...)

On the one hand, he finds, "Twenty-six billion dollars of fraud: no charges"; on the other, the San Diego County District Attorney's office conducts 26,000 warrantless, preemptive searches every year to make sure that welfare recipients really are exactly as poor as the poverty bureaucracy demands that they be. ~ Kristian Williams

Never judge badly a rage of a very patient heart who had let go many repetitive offenses from insufferable bastards. ~ Angelica Hopes

Drug offenses ... may be regarded as the prototypes of non-victim crimes today. The private nature of the sale and use of these drugs has led the police to resort to methods of detection and surveillance that intrude upon our privacy, including illegal search, eavesdropping, and entrapment. Indeed, the successful prosecution of such cases often requires police infringement of the constitutional protections that safeguard the privacy of individuals. ~ John Kaplan

10 He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our offenses. ~ Anonymous

Name one practical, down-to-earth effect of spirituality," said the skeptic who was ready for an argument. "Here's one," said the Master. "When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach. ~ Anthony De Mello

It is very easy to be spiritual inside a religious group but true faith is practiced when you love the ignorant and the atheists, despite their ridicule and offenses, and without the need to convert them to your beliefs. ~ Robin Sacredfire

People of color are actually no more likely to be guilty of drug crimes and many other offenses than whites. ~ Michelle Alexander

Love covers all kinds of offenses, hurts, annoyances, disappointments, and sins that we all suffer because of others. Only love has the power to freely and repeatedly forgive, to truly seek to understand people's weaknesses and complexities, to put things into proper perspective, and to put a blanket over other people's faults. ~ Alexander Strauch

A great number of people wake up each morning with the thought of not just how to pay back, but how to consciously or unconsciously live in the past! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Mere grimness is as easy as grinning; but it requires something to put a handsome face on a story. Narratives become of suspicious merit in proportion as they lean to Newgate-like offenses, particularly of blood and wounds ... ~ Leigh Hunt

I thought we were to discuss a referral which we believe contains substantial and credible information of potential impeachable offenses by the President of the United States. ~ Ken Starr

Offenses that are held on to lead to death. ~ Stasi Eldredge

If you are British, you soon get used to people not loving you. The Irish remind us of offenses from 100 years ago. Perhaps we should react to what the French did to us even longer ago. ~ Mick Jagger

Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
It must eat and breath air and sleep,
It has thin skin and blood right underneath,
An adequate stock of teeth and nails,
Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.

Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it is shuddered
Before the founding of Rome and after,
In the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown smaller,
And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall.

Nothing has changed.
It's just that there are more people,
Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared,
Real, imaginary, temporary, and none,
But the howl with which the body responds to them,
Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocence
According to the time-honored scale and tonality.

Nothing has changed.
Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances,
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull away
Its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds.

Nothing has changed.
Except of course for the course of boundaries,
The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers.
Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,
Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves a ~ Wisława Szymborska

("Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others," she writes, "it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them.") And so we are reminded, too, that holiness is not a state of perfection but a faithful striving that lasts a lifetime. ~ Dorothy Day

Ephesians 2:1-10 At one time you were like a dead person because of the things you did wrong and your offenses against God. 2You used to act like most people in our world do. You followed the rule of a destructive spiritual power. This is the spirit of disobedience to God's will that is now at work in persons whose lives are characterized by disobedience. 3At one time you were like those persons. All of you used to do whatever felt good and whatever you thought you wanted so that you were children headed for punishment just like everyone else. 4- 5However, God is rich in mercy. He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong. He did this because of the great love that he has for us. You are saved by God's grace! ~ David L. Bone

But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. ~ William Shakespeare

We saw this in late 2014 when Apple finally encrypted iPhone data; one after the other, law enforcement officials raised the specter of kidnappers and child predators. This is a common fearmongering assertion, but no one has pointed to any actual cases where this was an issue. Of the 3,576 major offenses for which warrants were granted for communications interception in 2013, exactly one involved kidnapping - and the victim wasn't a child. ~ Bruce Schneier

To be court-martialed - for any reason - is eight times as bad for an officer as for an enlisted man. Offenses which will get privates kicked out (maybe with lashes, possibly without) rate death in an officer. Better never to have been born! ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Expulsion and genocide, though both are international offenses, must remain distinct; the former is an offense against fellow-nations, whereas the latter is an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the "human status" without which the very words "mankind" or "humanity" would be devoid of meaning. ~ Hannah Arendt

Admire your offenders for they are never your offenders. They are only teachers in the class of forgiveness, tolerance and patience. How can you learn how to forgive when you have not been offended? How can you learn how to forgive seventy seven times seven when people have not offended you seventy seven times? Smile if you get offended, there is a lessons to learn! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It may seem a hard matter, to love our neighbours who have so much of what is evil about them, and whose faults so often await the evil that lingers within ourselves. But remember that he made them and he loves them, and whosever loves him that begat, loveth him that was begotten also. and if god so loveth us that he gave his only begotten son to die for us, we ought also to love one another, but if you cannot feel positive affection for those that do not care for you, you can at least try to do to them as they should do unto you. You can endeavour to pity their failings and excuse their offenses and to do all the good you can to those about you. And if you accustom yourself to this, Nancy, the very effort itself will make you love them in some degree, to say nothing of the goodwill your kindness would beget in them, though they might have little else that is good about them. If we love God, and wish to serve him, let us try to be like him, to do his work, to labour for his glory, which is the good of man, to hasten the coming of his kingdom, which is the peace and happiness of all the world. However powerless we may seem to be in doing all the good through life, the humblest of us may do much towards it. And let us dwell in love, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. The more happiness we bestow, the more we shall receive even here and the greater will be our reward in heaven when rest from our labours. ~ Anne Bronte

If I expect nothing of you, it will be far easier to forgive your offenses than if I place my whole world in your hands. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

For the past seven years we have been cracking down on crime in Missouri, passing tougher laws for drug crimes and sex offenses and requiring prisoners to serve more time. ~ Mel Carnahan

They discover that there are people who heal each other's wounds, forgive each other's offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God's glory. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The prosecution [of impeachments], will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust, and they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Franklin thought that if he could maintain his devotion to one virtue for an entire week, it would become a habit; then he could move on to the next virtue, successively making fewer and fewer offenses (indicated on the calendar by a black mark) until he had completely reformed himself and would thereafter need only occasional bouts of moral maintenance. The ~ Mason Currey

The sight of a cross on fire should be unsettling to any true Christian. To a Negro it is worse. A unique kind of fear enters your mind, one perfected by the South: that you could die for the most harmless of offenses. You could die just for the crime of living. ~ Rashad Harrison

What grieves me most in my past offenses, O my loving God, is not so much the punishment I have deserved, as the displeasure I have given You, Who are worthy of infinite love. ~ Alphonsus Liguori

Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty. ~ Emma Goldman

Trees are corrupting our parks. They should be arrested for loitering. For deciduous trees, add littering and indecent exposure to that list of offenses. ~ Bauvard

Forgiveness: You cannot afford to withhold forgiveness. Nothing will destroy your life more surely, for there is a great hidden grief in the denial of forgiveness. Your heart is so heavy from what you have not forgiven that you bear the offenses of another as if they were your own. ~ Glenda Green

Let me leave you with one very recent example of Berry at his best, drawn from an op-ed piece that he published (with his old friend and collaborator Wes Jackson) shortly after the economy crashed in the fall of 2008. For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. This is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billions of dollars to the agribusiness corporations. I ~ Wendell Berry

The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. ~ Michelle Alexander

Not just one day, you will live many days," the doctor would answer, "you will live months and years, too." "But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember each other's offenses? Let us go to the garden, let us walk and play and love and praise and kiss each other, and bless our life." "He's not long for this world, your son," the doctor said to mother as she saw him to the porch, "from sickness he is falling into madness." The ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the federal system alone there were 90,000 prisoners locked up for drug offenses, compared with about 40,000 for violent crimes. A federal prisoner costs at least $30,000 a year to incarcerate, and females actually cost more. ~ Piper Kerman

Each admission here defies a blood vow determined long before my birth. An apologist is a traitor of the highest order. How many men, how many fathers ever admit to failures or offenses? The act itself is a betrayal of the basic code. It sprays shrapnel of guilt in all directions. If one of us is wrong, the whole structure and story come tumbling down. Our silence is our bond. The power of not telling, of not letting on, is the most ancient and powerful weapon in our arsenal. ~ Eve Ensler

For when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

More than anyone in that room, I was aware of exactly the sort of person who did such a thing. What I hadnn't realized until that very moment, though, was that it wasn't just my mother who was guilty of all these offenses. I'd told myself that everything I'd done in the weeks before and since she left was to make sure I would never be like her. But it was too late. All I had to do was look at the way I'd reacted to what Cora had told me that morning- taking off, getting wasted, letting myself be left alone in a strange place- to know I already was...

Perhaps I was just like my mother. But looking up at Cora's hand, I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to trya nad prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.

~Ruby, pg 225 ~ Sarah Dessen

Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back." Veronica settled herself in a rattan chair and adjusted her hat just so. "We - by whom I mean anyone over sixty - commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight. ~ David Mitchell