The Prophet on Crime and Punishment

...then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of crime and Punishment".
Ans he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commint wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait awhile unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your God-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell in your being.
Much in you is still a man, and much in you is still not yet man,
But a shapeless pygmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pygmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the tumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not accountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yes, the gulty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as black thread and the white and woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring the judgement to the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurement.

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What's written above is obe verse from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. Even if it's difficult to interpret what's written in this masterpiece, it is quite easy to understand what this verse meant: THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU PLACE YOUR JUDGEMENT UPON SOMEONE ELSE, FOR HIS POSITION COULD HAVE BEEN VERY EASILY YOURS, TOO.