Quotes

No man should be judge in his own case.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.

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

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

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.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

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

The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

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

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

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

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.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

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.

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

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

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.