We are prisoners of ideas.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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.
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
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.
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.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
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.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
