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.
It is safer that a bad man should not be
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us,
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
Faults of the head are punished in this
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
The public have more interest in the
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
If two people fight on the street, whose
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
Here the great art lies, to discern in
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
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.
A sick person is a prisoner.
A sick person is a prisoner.
To make punishments efficacious, two
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
I have never been contained except I
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
Liberty is rendered even more precious
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Women have worked hard; starved in
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.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
I never told a victim story about my
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.
I asked a man in prison once how he
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
If punishment reaches not the mind and
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
There is no peace because the making of
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.
Assassination is the extreme form of
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
