It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
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.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
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?
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
