Quotes

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.

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

No crime has been without a precedent.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

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.

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.

Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.

It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

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!

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.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

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