Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
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 a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
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.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
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 only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
