Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
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.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
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.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
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.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
