Quotes

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

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.

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.

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.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

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

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

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

We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.

Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

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

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.

When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.

I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.

Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.