Quotes

One crime has to be concealed by another.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.

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.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.

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.

I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

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.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

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

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

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.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

No man should be judge in his own case.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.