Quotes

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

The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.

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

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

Vices are not crimes.

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

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

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

So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

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.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

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%.

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 don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

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

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.