It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
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.
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.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
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.
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.
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
