Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
We are prisoners of ideas.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
A sick person is a prisoner.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
