Quotes

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

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

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

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

While crime is punished it yet increases.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

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.

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

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

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.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

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.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.