While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
The common argument that crime is caused
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
There are dreadful punishments enacted
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime,
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
It is not at the table, but in prison,
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Man is born free, and everywhere he is
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
A country is in a bad state, which is
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
The object of punishment is prevention
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
I have been studying how I may compare
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
Every crime has, in the moment of its
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
The torment of human frustration,
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.
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
I have been studying how I may compare
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
I submit that an individual who breaks a
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 was only when I lay there on the
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
There is no peace because the making of
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
Two men look out the same prison bars;
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
On average, drug prisoners spend more
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
Man is condemned to be free.
Man is condemned to be free.
