Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
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.
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
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.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
Vices are not crimes.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
A sick person is a prisoner.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
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.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
