Quotes

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

Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

One crime is everything; two nothing.

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

Body is a home, a prison and a grave.

A sick person is a prisoner.

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

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”

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 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.

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

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

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

No man should be judge in his own case.

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.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

Vices are not crimes.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

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