Quotes

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

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

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

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

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

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.

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

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

Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.

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

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

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

A sick person is a prisoner.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

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

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

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

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