In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Justice renders to every one his due.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
No crime has been without a precedent.
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.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
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.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
