I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
Vices are not crimes.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
