Quotes

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

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.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!

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.

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.

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.

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.

He who profits by a crime commits it.

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

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

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

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

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

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.