Quotes

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

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.

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 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.

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

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.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.