When you are younger you get blamed for
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
Corporal punishment falls far more
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Laws do not persuade just because they
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
I don't like being famous - it is like a
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
I asked a man in prison once how he
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
Fast closed with double grills
Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
To seek the redress of grievances by
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime,
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
The torment of human frustration,
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Organized crime in America takes in over
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
One crime has to be concealed by
One crime has to be concealed by another.
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.
There are dreadful punishments enacted
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
On a planet that increasingly resembles
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
To try to raise a son from inside the
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
Intellectual despair results in neither
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
I know not whether laws be right, or
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
Definition, rationality, and structure
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for
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.
It was only when I lay there on the
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
