Quotes

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

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 know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.

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

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

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%.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

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.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

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

Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.

Man is condemned to be free.

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.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.

Vices are not crimes.

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

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

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.