Quotes

If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!

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

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

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.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

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

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.