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.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
No crime has been without a precedent.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
A sick person is a prisoner.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
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.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
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.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
