Quotes

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

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.

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

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.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

Body is a home, a prison and a grave.

To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.

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

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

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.

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

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

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

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

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.