Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
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.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
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.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Vices are not crimes.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
