Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
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.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
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.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
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.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
