Prison Quotes

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

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.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker

One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.