No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
One crime has to be concealed by
One crime has to be concealed by another.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
It is certain that the study of human
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
It is the spirit and not the form of law
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
The number of laws is constantly growing
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.
Prison continues, on those who are
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Once we are destined to live out our
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
I wrote a million words in the first
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
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.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
The only real prison is fear, and the
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Assassination is the extreme form of
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
Since 1957, black people have
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
How dreadful it is when the right judge
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
Intellectual despair results in neither
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
