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.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
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.
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
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.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
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.”
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
