No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
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.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
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.
Vices are not crimes.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
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.
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
