The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
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.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
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.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
