Quotes

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

No man should be judge in his own case.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

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 degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

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

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

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 perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

A sick person is a prisoner.