Quotes

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

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

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

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.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

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

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

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

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.

Body is a home, a prison and a grave.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

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

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

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

One crime has to be concealed by another.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

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!

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.