Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
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.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
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.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
