Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Attenborough

Attenborough’s word choice is doing quiet demolition work. He doesn’t argue the death penalty (or state killing) is “wrong” or “ineffective”; he calls it “obscene,” a term that drags the issue out of policy-land and into the realm of moral nausea. Obscenity isn’t a spreadsheet problem. It’s something you’re not supposed to normalize, something that stains the viewer as much as the act itself. That’s the point: the real target is not the condemned but the self-image of the society doing the condemning.

The key move is “we should believe that we are entitled.” He frames capital punishment less as justice than as a story a community tells itself to feel authorized, clean, and righteous. “Entitled” carries the whiff of privilege: not necessity, not tragic inevitability, but a presumption of ownership over another person’s existence. It’s a psychological critique disguised as ethics.

Then he undercuts the usual justifications with “supposedly.” That single word smuggles in doubt about institutions, evidence, and collective certainty. Even if you trust the courts, “supposedly” reminds you that guilt is mediated by imperfect systems and human bias. The line “done or not done” widens the critique beyond miscarriages of justice to the deeper premise: no amount of wrongdoing grants anyone a moral deed to someone else’s life.

Coming from an actor and filmmaker associated with humanist, issue-driven work, it reads as a public-facing conscience statement: plainspoken, emotionally legible, and aimed at puncturing the audience’s comfort with sanctioned violence.