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.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
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 worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
