To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
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.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
A sick person is a prisoner.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
Vices are not crimes.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
