The severity of punishments ought to be relative to the state of the nation itself. Stronger and more easily felt impressions have to be made on a people only just out of the savage state. A lightning strike is needed to stop a fierce lion who is provoked by a gunshot.

Cesare Beccaria

I wasn't a sweet kid. I was an instigator and provoked everyone with my goofy hyena cackle, loving every minute of the drama I could create.

Adam F. Goldberg

Osama bin Laden characterized his terrorist activities as 'defensive jihad,' provoked by 'debauched infidels' bent on enslaving the Muslim world. The lead industry blamed 'ignorant parents' for applying lead paint to juvenile furniture.

Albert Bandura

Unprovoked attacks on Israel's borders, murdering Israeli soldiers, taking Israeli hostages and showering rockets targeting and killing Israeli civilians are not furthering any legitimate goal.

Alcee Hastings

Of course defenders will try to provoke me - that is their job.

Aleksandar Mitrovic

And it says something about our level of disassociation, that we can provoke these wars abroad but we're not allowed to see people get killed as a result.

Alex Cox

If we turn our backs of the Scythians who have provoked us, how shamefully shall we march against the revolted Bactrians; but if we pass Tanais and make the Scythians feel, by dear experience, that we are invincible, not in Asia only, it is not to be doubted but that Europe itself, as well as Asia, will come within the bounds of our conquests.

Alexander the Great

Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.

Alvin Toffler

I became an actress to provoke people and move people and to tell the stories.

Alyssa Sutherland

Of all the logical impasses, unknowings, paradoxes, and terrors that provoke laughter, death by its finality and unsolvable mystery is paramount.

Andrew Hudgins

People around the world now complain about stressors everyday, and the word shows up throughout professional and lay literature. But in reality there is no such thing as a stressor. Why not? Because nothing has the inherent power to provoke stress.

Andrew J. Bernstein

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

Andrew Neil

Horror, for me, is not defined by the thing that provokes one's fear, but the human being who has contact with it.

Andrew Pyper

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.

Andy Goldsworthy

Herr Schroder has conducted two electoral campaigns, and he is doing it again now, by not telling people what is really necessary. He keeps avoiding the difficult and uncomfortable issues, those that imply changes and therefore provoke discussions.

Angela Merkel

From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.

Athol Fugard

If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.

Avicii

Obviously this song is an achievement for me in my career, but what makes me really feel good is to make Latinos feel proud. To provoke that pride that a pop figure and someone so big in music globally like Drake would sing with me completely in Spanish and create this hit 'MIA.' That's the best part of it.

Bad Bunny

There's no question that Ben Shapiro loves to provoke college students.

Bari Weiss

The Argentinians provoke and are always whingeing to the referee to try and change his opinion. It starts before the match. You see their body language, how they gesticulate, how they try to influence the referee. That is not part of the game. That is a lack of respect. It's their mentality and character, and we'll have to adjust.

Bastian Schweinsteiger

We've turned film into such an industry that we pursue naturalism just by shaking the camera and cutting the film to ribbons to provoke a bogus sense of documentary. But we haven't done the homework. To push the depth that the Actor's Studio did or the Russian theatres did with their actors is to rehearse, to spend time, to dig, to excavate.

Ben Foster