Quotes

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

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.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

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.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

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.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

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

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

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

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

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

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.