On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
I have never been contained except I made the 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.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
Vices are not crimes.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
