Quotes

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

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.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

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.

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

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

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

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

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

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

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.

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

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

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.

If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.

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

He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.

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.

It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.

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.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.