The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
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.
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.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
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.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
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.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
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.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
