Quotes

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

Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.

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

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

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

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

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

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

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

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.

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

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

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

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

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.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

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