Quotes

We are prisoners of ideas.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.

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

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Justice renders to every one his due.

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.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

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

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.

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.

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

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

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

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

One crime has to be concealed by another.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

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.

Vices are not crimes.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.