Margot Haas

“The labour did not seem to me very trying; I fancied that it could not be the real "hard labour." I did not understand till long afterwards why this labour was really hard and excessive. It was less by reason of it's difficulty, than because it was forced, imposed, obligatory; and it was only done through fear of the stick.”
― 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

“I dug my feet into the shadow and said kindly: 'You don't have to be comforted. After all, you're being loved.”
― Franz Kafka, Description of a Struggle

“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