• The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime - for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.

    Marquis de Sade: The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime - for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.
    "Philosophy in the Bedroom". Book by Marquis de Sade. Chapter: "Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans", 1795.