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.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
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.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
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.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
