Quotes

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

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

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

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

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.

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

While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

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.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

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.

By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.