Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
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.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
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.
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.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
