Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
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.
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.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
Man is condemned to be free.
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.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
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.
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.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
A sick person is a prisoner.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
