No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
