Quotes

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

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

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

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.

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

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

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.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.

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.

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

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

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

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.