No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
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.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
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.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
