Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
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.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
Justice renders to every one his due.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
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 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.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
