My favorite quotes will give you an insight to how I work:

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

All from Niccolo Machiavelli.....