Quotes

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

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

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

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

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!

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

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

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

It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.

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.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.

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

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

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