Quotes

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

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.

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.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

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

Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.

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

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

We are prisoners of ideas.

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

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.”