Quotes

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

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

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.

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.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

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

We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.

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.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

Shyness is the prison of the heart.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.