It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
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.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
A sick person is a prisoner.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
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.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
No man should be judge in his own case.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
