Quotes

I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

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.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

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.

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

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.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.

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

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.

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.

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

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.