Quotes

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

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.

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!

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

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.”

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.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

Shyness is the prison of the heart.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.