Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
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.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
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.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
