Quotes

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

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?

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

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.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.

No crime has been without a precedent.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

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.

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.