Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
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.”
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
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.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
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.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
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.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
