Quotes

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

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

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

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

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.

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

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

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.

Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

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

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.

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.

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.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.