Quotes

One crime is everything; two nothing.

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

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.

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

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

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

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.

I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

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.

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.

Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.