Daily Inspiration Quote by Hugh Leonard

Leonard’s line lands like a shrug that turns into a verdict. By framing it as “somebody once said,” he slips the idea in sideways, almost casually, as if it’s an old proverb you half-remember. That maneuver matters: it makes the thought feel communal and inevitable, not like a playwright lecturing from the stage. The aphorism then pivots on a neat grammatical trapdoor. “For” suggests an external judge, a courtroom, a God with a ledger. “By” relocates the sentence inside the self, where consequence is less spectacle than corrosion.

The intent isn’t to deny morality; it’s to withdraw the consolation prize we secretly want from wrongdoing: the clarity of a clean punishment. If you’re punished for your sins, the universe is at least legible. Do the crime, do the time, move on. Leonard’s version is darker and more dramatically useful. It implies that the real sentence is ongoing: guilt that rewrites your memory, habits that harden into character, a lie that breeds new lies, a betrayal that deforms future intimacy. The “punishment” isn’t a thunderbolt; it’s the way the sin keeps living in you, making your next choices smaller.

As a dramatist, Leonard is tuned to aftermath. Theater thrives on actions that can’t be un-done and people forced to inhabit what they set in motion. The line also carries a faint Irish-Catholic shadow without submitting to it: less divine retribution than interior reckoning. It’s moral accountability with no priest, no judge, no exit cue.