Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
No crime has been without a precedent.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
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.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
