Margot Haas

“You would not obey your father and mother; you will now obey thongs of leather.' 'The man who would not sow must now break stones.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

“It once came into my head that if it were desired to reduce a man to nothing--to punish him atrociously, to crush him in such a manner that the most hardened murderer would tremble before such a punishment, and take fright beforehand--it would be necessary to give to his work a character of complete uselessness, even to absurdity.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

“It is acknowledged that neither convict prisons, or the hulks, nor any system of hard labour ever cured a criminal. These forms of chastisement only punish him and reassure society against the offences he might commit. Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop with these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitrations.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

“It would be absurd, for it would have no natural end.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead