The contagion of crime is like that of
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
I never told a victim story about my
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.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Assassination is the extreme form of
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
No written law has been more binding
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
One of the problems that the marijuana
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
In a civilized society, all crimes are
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Let us remember that justice must be
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
The most anxious man in a prison is the
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Women now have choices. They can be
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
The torment of human frustration,
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
The virtue of justice consists in
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Taught from infancy that beauty is
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.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
When it comes to freedom, we are but
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Laws do not persuade just because they
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
While crime is punished it yet
While crime is punished it yet increases.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.