Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
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.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
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.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
