If you strike at, imprison, or kill us,
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
In prisons, those things withheld from
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
It is certain that the study of human
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
Our task must be to free ourselves from
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.
The reformative effect of punishment is
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
The perfection of a thing consists in
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
He who opens a school door, closes a
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
The power of punishment is to silence,
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
No crime has been without a precedent.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
Money will determine whether the accused
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
How dreadful it is when the right judge
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
I asked a man in prison once how he
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.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
