Quotes

Shyness is the prison of the heart.

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.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

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

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

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

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.

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

Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.

I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.

I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.

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

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.

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

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

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.