One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
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.
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.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
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.”
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
