Quotes

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.

Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.

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%.

There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

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

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

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

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.

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.”

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

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

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

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

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.