We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
A sick person is a prisoner.
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.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
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.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
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.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
