Quotes

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

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

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

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.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

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.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

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

Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Justice renders to every one his due.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

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.

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

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.