You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
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.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
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.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
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.
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
