It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
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.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
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.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
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.
A sick person is a prisoner.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
