No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
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.
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.
A sick person is a prisoner.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
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.
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.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
