History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
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.
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.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
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.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
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.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
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.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
