Quotes

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

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.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

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

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

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.

Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

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

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

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 law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

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

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

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

The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

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

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

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.