Quotes

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

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

Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.

Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.

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.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

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

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.

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.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.