Quotes

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

No crime has been without a precedent.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.

Body is a home, a prison and a grave.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

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.

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

We are prisoners of ideas.

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

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.