Quotes

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

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

I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.

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

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

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

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

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

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

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

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

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.

A sick person is a prisoner.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

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.

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

While crime is punished it yet increases.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.