I existed in a world that never is - the
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
A Sunday school is a prison in which
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
They were being driven to a prison,
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!
I know how men in exile feed on dreams
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
It is the spirit and not the form of law
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
I never told a victim story about my
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.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
No man survives when freedom fails. The
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.
Laws do not persuade just because they
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
It is certain that the study of human
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
One of the problems that the marijuana
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
We are prisoners of ideas.
We are prisoners of ideas.
The English laws punish vice; the
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
A sick person is a prisoner.
A sick person is a prisoner.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
