I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
No man should be judge in his own case.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
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.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
