Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Man is condemned to be free.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
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.
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.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
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.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
