Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
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.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
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.
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.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
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.
