In order that punishment should not be an act of violence perpetrated by one or many upon a private citizen, it is essential that it should be public, speedy, necessary, the minimum possible in the given circumstances, proportionate to the crime, and determined by the law.

Cesare Beccaria

More Quotes by Cesare Beccaria
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More Quotes From Cesare Beccaria
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. by Cesare Beccaria

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

Cesare Beccaria
pragmatismcrime
Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the s... by Cesare Beccaria

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

Cesare Beccaria
punishmentcrimecertainty
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who... by Cesare Beccaria

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are

Cesare Beccaria
gunlawmen

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

Cesare Beccaria
intensitycrimemen

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

Cesare Beccaria
crimeweaponslaw

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

Cesare Beccaria
punishmentjudgingwar

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

Cesare Beccaria
sacrificerealmen
The fault no child ever loses is the one he was most punished for... by Cesare Beccaria

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

Cesare Beccaria
childhoodfaultschildren
Happy is the nation without a history. by Cesare Beccaria

Happy is the nation without a history.

Cesare Beccaria
rehabilitationnations

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.

Cesare Beccaria
lawmaymen

For every crime that comes before him, a judge is required to complete a perfect syllogism in which the major premise must be the general law; the minor, the action that conforms or does not conform to the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment. If the judge were constrained, or if he desired to frame even a single additional syllogism, the door would thereby be opened to uncertainty.

Cesare Beccaria
punishmentlawdoors

In every human society, there is an effort continually tending to confer on one part the height of power and happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness and misery. The intent of good laws is to oppose this effort and to diffuse their influence universally and equally.

Cesare Beccaria
goodsocietypowerhappiness

For every criminal case, the judge must construct a perfect syllogism: the major premise must be the general law; the minor premise, whether or not the action in question is in compliance with the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment.

Cesare Beccaria
judgepunishmentlawaction

If someone were to say that life at hard labor is as painful as death and therefore equally cruel, I should reply that, taking all the unhappy moments of perpetual slavery together, it is perhaps even more painful, but these moments are spread out over a lifetime, and capital punishment exercises all its power in an instant.

Cesare Beccaria
powertogetherlifedeath

Our knowledge and all of our ideas are mutually connected; the more complicated they are, the more numerous must be the roads that lead to them and depart from them.

Cesare Beccaria
roadscomplicatedideasknowledge

No man can be judged a criminal until he is found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it has been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorize the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt?

Cesare Beccaria
mansocietypowerlong

The moral and political principles that govern men are derived from three sources: revelation, natural law, and the artificial conventions of society. With regard to its main purpose, there is no comparison between the first and the others; but all three are alike in that they all lead towards happiness in this mortal life.

Cesare Beccaria
societyhappinessmenlife

The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.

Cesare Beccaria
onlypunishmentsocietyauthority

Easy, simple and great laws, which await nothing but a sign from the lawgiver to spread prosperity and vigour throughout the nation, laws which would earn him immortal hymns of gratitude down the generations, are those which are least considered or least wanted.

Cesare Beccaria
downgreatgratitudesimple

If the same punishment is prescribed for two crimes that injure society in different degrees, then men will face no stronger deterrent from committing the greater crime if they find it in their advantage to do so.

Cesare Beccaria
facepunishmentsocietymen