Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
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.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
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.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
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.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
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.
