Experts and the educated elite have
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
There are dreadful punishments enacted
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
Here the great art lies, to discern in
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.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
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?
In prison, you get the chance to see who
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Well, I don't think prisons are the
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
Care should be taken that the punishment
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
One crime has to be concealed by
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Any punishment that does not correct,
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Punishment, that is the justice for the
Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
On average, drug prisoners spend more
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
Show me the prison, Show me the jail,
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
Definition, rationality, and structure
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
We judge ourselves by what we feel
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
