Quotes

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

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

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

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

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

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

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.

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.

Justice renders to every one his due.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

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.

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.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.