Quotes

If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!

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.

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.

Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.

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.

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.

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.

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

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

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

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

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.

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

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.

A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

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

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

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.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.