retribution

Accidents and sicknesses are accepted as deserved retribution by the person who has feelings of guilt

After reading Burgum, [Patricia Highsmith] wrote in her cahier that, like Kafka, she felt she was a pessimist, unable to formulate a system in which an individual could believe in God, government or self. Again like Kafka, she looked into the great abyss which separated the spiritual and the material and saw the terrifying emptiness, the hollowness, at the heart of every man, a sense of alienation she felt compelled to explore in her fiction. As her next hero, she would take an architect, 'a young man whose authority is art and therefore himself,' who when he murders, 'feels no guilt or even fear when he thinks of legal retribution'. The more she read of Kafka the more she felt afraid as she came to realise, 'I am so similar to him.

One day I woke up and realized no amount of love, care, pain, hurt, anger, or retribution could ever transform those who are evil into good or kind people. That day I let go; I stopped caring for them, gave up any hope for their souls, and knew they were never worthy of me or my time.

Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong." determines what is right!" 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.

The way of transgressors is hard.

The mills of the gods grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine.

Somewhere deep inside, his humanity had been shaken by something so unnatural, so foreign in its essence, his very being withdrew from it...

Only the weak hit the fly with a hammer

Aw, you goddammed bastards! They're shootin' him while he's down! Son of a bitch!"The ship stopped moving, and Alex said in a quiet voice, "Suck on this, asshole."The ship vibrated for half a second, then paused before continuing toward the lock."Point defense cannons?" Holden asked."Summary roadside justice," Alex grunted back.

In every life, there comes a day of reckoning - a time when unsettled scores demand retribution, and our own lies and transgressions are finally laid bare.

Payback is a bitch, and the bitch is back.

Remembering the treatment that had been accorded the Knights and soldiers of St. Elmo, the Maltese inhabitants of Senglea took no prisoners. Hence there arose the expression (used in Malta to this day) 'St. Elmo's pay' for any action in which no mercy is given.

Everything that glitters ain't gold.

My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!

You can be the hunter, or you can be the hunted.

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.

For some offenses, there is only retribution." Nora Hawks, "One Woman's Vengeance.

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.