The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
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.
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.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
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.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
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 worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
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 thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
