Quotes

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

It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

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

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

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

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

Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

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

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.

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.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

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.

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

Shyness is the prison of the heart.

Man is condemned to be free.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

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

I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.