Quotes

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.

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

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

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

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

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.

Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

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

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

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.

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.