Quotes

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!

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

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

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

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

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

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 refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

A sick person is a prisoner.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

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.

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

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

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

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

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

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.

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

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.