Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
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.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
We are prisoners of ideas.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
