Quotes

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

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.

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.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

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

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

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.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.

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

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

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.

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.

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

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.