Quotes

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

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.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

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

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

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

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.

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

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.