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.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
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.
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.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
We are prisoners of ideas.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
