Quotes

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.

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.

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

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

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

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

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

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

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.