It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
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.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
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.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
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.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
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.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
