Women now have choices. They can be
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
I have never been contained except I
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
In prison, you get the chance to see who
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The refined punishments of the spiritual
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
There are few better measures of the
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
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.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten
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.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch;
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
The most anxious man in a prison is the
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
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.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Everyone is a prisoner of his own
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Intellectual despair results in neither
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.
He had drawn many a thousand of these
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
I wrote a million words in the first
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
I can tell you this on a stack of
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
