Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
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.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
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.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
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 only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
