Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
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.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
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.
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
No man should be judge in his own case.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
