We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
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.
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.”
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.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
