If you want total security, go to
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
The law does not pretend to punish
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
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.
In a civilized society, all crimes are
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
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?
I can tell you this on a stack of
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where
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.
They're not supposed to show prison
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
It is the spirit and not the form of law
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
I was put into jail as I was going to
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch;
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
One man meets an infamous punishment for
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
We who live in prison, and in whose
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
Law is merely the expression of the will
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.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
