Quotes

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.

Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.

No crime has been without a precedent.

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

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

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

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

Vices are not crimes.

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.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.

He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.

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

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

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.