Quotes

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

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.

Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

Shyness is the prison of the heart.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.