Quotes

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

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.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

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

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

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

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

We are prisoners of ideas.

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.

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.

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

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

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.

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

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.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

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.

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

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.