Quotes

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

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

Man is condemned to be free.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

A sick person is a prisoner.

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.

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

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.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.