When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
No crime has been without a precedent.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
