If you want total security, go to
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
We're in a war. People who blast some
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
I can work for the Lord in or out of
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Law is merely the expression of the will
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Faults of the head are punished in this
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Why would anyone expect him to come out
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
I have never been contained except I
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
It is better that ten guilty persons
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
On a planet that increasingly resembles
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
How dreadful it is when the right judge
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
The object of punishment is prevention
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
I have been studying how I may compare
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.