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.
While crime is punished it yet
While crime is punished it yet increases.
We have our own system, ... and
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.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Wherever any one is against his will,
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
The degree of civilization in a society
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Experts and the educated elite have
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
We have initiated programs for re-entry
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
The public have more interest in the
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
There is a point at which even justice
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
It isn't true that convicts live like
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
The only real prison is fear, and the
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
The only difference between me and my
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
Every instance of a man's suffering the
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.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
The best situation of all, and one
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
They were being driven to a prison,
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
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.
In prison, you get the chance to see who
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
I am certain that nothing has done so
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
Our task must be to free ourselves from
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
