I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
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.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
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.
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.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
No crime has been without a precedent.
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
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
