Quotes

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.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

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

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.

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

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

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

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

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.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.