Retribution Quotes

“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong."
"But the Almighty determines what is right!"
"Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace

“But men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.”
― Robert Jordan

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”
― Anne Lamott

“I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.

It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was covered in blood.

The second thing I noticed was that this didn’t bother me the way it should have.

I didn’t feel the urge to scream or speak, to beg for help, or even to wonder where I was. Those instincts were dead, and I was calm as my wet fingers slid up the tiled wall, groping for a light switch. I found one without even having to stand. Four lights slammed on above me, one after the other, illuminating the dead body on the floor just a few feet away.

My mind processed the facts first. Male. Heavy. He was lying face down in a wide, red puddle that spread out from beneath him. The tips of his curly black hair were wet with it. There was something in his hand.

The fluorescent lights in the white room flickered and buzzed and hummed. I moved to get a better view of the body. His eyes were closed. He could have been asleep, really, if it weren’t for the blood. There was so much of it. And by one of his hands it was smeared into a weird pattern.

No. Not a pattern. Words.

PLAY ME.

My gaze flicked to his hand. His fist was curled around a small tape recorder. I moved his fingers—still warm—and pressed play. A male voice started to speak.

"Do I have your attention?" the voice said.

I knew that voice. But I couldn’t believe I was hearing it.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Retribution of Mara Dyer

“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”
― Friedrich von Logau

“Mr. Buckley, let me explain it this way. And I'll do so very carefully and slowly so that even you will understand it. If I was the sheriff, I would not have arrested him. If I was on the grand jury, I would not have indicted him. If I was the judge, I would not try him. If I was the D.A., I would not prosecute him. If I was on the trial jury, I would vote to give him a key to the city, a plaque to hang on his wall, and I would send him home to his family. And, Mr. Buckley, if my daughter is ever raped, I hope I have the guts to do what he did.”
― John Grisham, A Time to Kill

“No man, no matter how smart or strong, can compete with a motivated woman.”
― J.K. Franko, Killing Johnny Miracle

“Paulinus, everyone knows. Say the word, and I'll run the bitch over with my chariot”
― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome

“Karen was radiant in a beautiful blue gown. Even her mother, for once, had said so. “Not just pretty, honey—you reek of class. Like Princess Grace from Morocco,” she’d said, beaming at her daughter.”
― J.K. Franko, Killing Johnny Miracle

“Vengeance, retaliation, retribution, revenge are deceitful brothers—vile, beguiling demons promising justifiable compensation to a pained soul for his losses. Yet in truth they craftily fester away all else of worth remaining.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“From the start, I told you! We should’a just handled this ourselves. You should’ve handled it the way my daddy would’ve.” She paused, looking at Tom, and lowered her voice, “Just like Crockett.”
― J.K. Franko, The Trial of Joe Harlan Junior

“Karma has been a pop culture term for ages. But really, what the heck is it?

Karma is not an inviolate engine of cosmic punishment. Rather, it is a neutral sequence of acts, results, and consequences.

Receiving misfortune does not necessarily indicate that one has committed evil. But it is a sufficient indicator of something else.

And that something else can be anything, as long as it is a logical consequence of what has come before.

Consider: if you fall into a well, you are not a bad person who deserves to suffer—you are merely someone who took a wrong step. Or someone who had one drink too many. Or got a head rush due to poor circulation. Or forgot to wear your glasses. Or—

The reasons are plentiful, and all plausible. But the chain of cause and effect goes way, way back into the deepest hoariest recesses of your personal past.

So never rule out retribution. But never expect it.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“In it's purest form, an act of retribution provides symmetry. The rendering payment of crimes against the innocent. But a danger on retaliation lies on the furthering cycle of violence. Still, it's a risk that must be met; and the greater offense is to allow the guilty go unpunished.”
― Emily Thorne

“The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it," I say. "Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“To punish someone for your own mistakes or for the consequences of your own actions, to harm another by shifting blame that is rightly yours; this is a wretched and cowardly sin.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

“For some offenses, there is only retribution." Nora Hawks, "One Woman's Vengeance.”
― Dennis R. Miller

“Vengeance is a monster of appetite, forever bloodthirsty and never filled.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“You can be the hunter, or you can be the hunted.”
― Lisa Gardner, The Neighbor

“Time and Nemesis will do that which I would not, were it in my power remote or immediate. You will smile at this piece of prophecy - do so, but recollect it: it is justified by all human experience. No one was ever even the involuntary cause of great evils to others, without a requital: I have paid and am paying for mine - so will you.”
― George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals

“I stole their future from them; I can only being to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I here? Why am I here? After a moment's thought, he decided he better change it to: why are we here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish.”
― James Jones, The Thin Red Line

“Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments."

[On Water]”
― Guy de Maupassant, The Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant

“Somewhere deep inside, his humanity had been shaken by something so unnatural, so foreign in its essence, his very being withdrew from it...”
― Tamara Rose Blodgett, Death Weeps

“We all have the beast in us Bill, and it is up to us to control it.”
― Leslie W.P. Garland, The Little Dog

“And he said...

retribution will even the odds in life, but not in your favor.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“I have no interest in inflicting damage or exacting retribution. Truth-telling, on the other hand, is essential. Sadly, truth-telling is now considered "demonizing" by those invested in the status quo.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci