Quotes

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

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

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

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

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.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

He who profits by a crime commits it.

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn 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.

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

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

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 world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

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.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.