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.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
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.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
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.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
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.
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.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
No man should be judge in his own case.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
