If you want total security, go to
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
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?
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
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.
On average, drug prisoners spend more
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
There is no greater punishment of
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Society has used the juvenile courts to
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
Self is the only prison that can bind
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
The law does not pretend to punish
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
A Sunday school is a prison in which
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
The most anxious man in a prison is the
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
The perfection of a thing consists in
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Reality becomes a prison to those who
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
Faults of the head are punished in this
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
In a civilized society, all crimes are
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
