Quotes

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.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.

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

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.

One crime is everything; two nothing.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

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!

Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.

Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

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

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.

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.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

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

Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.

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

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.