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.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
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.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
Man is condemned to be free.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
