Quotes & Sayings About Convicts

Cannot come to Christ unless the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. — Billy Graham

My second point, in fact, was something the convicts had taught me. They all believed that the White people who insisted that it was their Constitutional right to keep military weapons in their homes all looked forward to the day when they could shot Americans who didn't have what they had, who didn't look like their friends and relatives, in a sort of open-air shooting gallery we used to call in Vietnam a "Free Fire Zone." You could shoot anything that moved, for the good of the greater society, which was always someplace far away, like Paradise. — Kurt Vonnegut

People tend to say Christians are always judging, but the word of God convicts Christians and urges them to obey God's commands. — Monica Johnson

There were eruptions against the convict labor system in the South, in which prisoners were leased in slave labor to corporations, used thus to depress the general level of wages and also to break strikes. In the year 1891, miners of the Tennessee Coal Mine Company were asked to sign an "iron-clad contract": pledging no strikes, agreeing to get paid in scrip, and giving up the right to check the weight of the coal they mined (they were paid by the weight). They refused to sign and were evicted from their houses. Convicts were brought in to replace them. — Howard Zinn

Day by day, we are becoming what we shall be eternally. The spirit who convicts us is also the spirit who consoles. — Charles Spurgeon

It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them. — Epictetus

Merciful heavens! Human treatment may even render human a man in whom the image of God has long ago been tarnished. It is these 'unfortunates' that must be treated in the most human fashion. This is their salvation and their joy. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Jane, who is much better at reading guide books than I am (I always read them on the way back to see what I missed, it's often quite a shock), discovered something wonderful in the book she was reading. Did I know, she asked, that Brisbane was originally founded as a penal colony for convicts who committed new offences after they had arrived in Australia ? I spent a good half hour enjoying this single piece of information. It was wonderful. There we British sat, poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seeped like a rancid dish cloth, busy sending those we wished to punish most severely to sit in bright sunlight on the coast of the Tasman Sea at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and maybe do some surfing too. No wonder the Australians have a particular kind of smile that they reserve exclusively for use on the British. — Douglas Adams

If I play a cop, it's always a racist cop or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop - but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts. — M. C. Gainey

(Prisoners) need an education. They need a GED to start with. Then they need some kind of training so when they get out they have a marketable skill. That way they can support themselves and they can support their families. — Christopher Zoukis

I felt a strange sense of calm and realized what I was feeling was the release of responsibility. Nobody expected me to be at work the next day. Nobody was trying to call me. I had no e-mail to check. Ghost enthusiasts weren't stalking me on Facebook. Our responsibilities were stripped down to the bare biological basics: thirst, hunger, cold. All at once I could see why lifelong convicts got to where they couldn't function outside of prison walls. You're almost functioning more at a level for which the human brain was intended. — David Wong

It is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts. — Robert G. Ingersoll

I believe the best mode of aiding convicts is so to apportion their tasks in prison as to give to the industrious the opportunity of earning a sum for themselves by 'over-work.' A man usually values that most for which he has labored; he uses that most frugally which he has toiled hour by hour and day by day to acquire. — Dorothea Dix

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

This is the good news of the gospel. Peace came. Peace lived. Peace died. Peace rose again. Peace reigns on your behalf. Peace indwells you by the Spirit. Peace graces you with everything you need. Peace convicts, forgives, and delivers you. Peace will finish his work in you. Peace will welcome you into glory, where Peace will live with you in peace and righteousness forever. Peace isn't a faded dream. No, Peace is real. Peace is a person, and his name is Jesus. — Paul David Tripp

The claim at the heart of this book has been carefully researched by several generations of scholars and is orthodox in academic circles, if not beyond. Christians under the Roman Empire were neither constantly persecuted nor martyred in huge numbers for their faith. They were prosecuted from time to time for alleged sedition, holding illegal meetings or refusing to sacrifice to the emperor. They were, like other convicts, sometimes tortured and executed in horrible ways. They seem to have been regarded by many Romans with distaste as a particularly silly superstition. But Christian stories of thousands of individual and mass martyrdoms over centuries have at best a limited basis in historical fact, and in many cases are sheer fiction. — Teresa Morgan

Holy Spirit convicts us when we do something wrong, He guides us back to the right path — Sunday Adelaja

What do people have against convicts? Is living together in the pen of freedom, where young people engage in mutual psychology, any more beautiful? — Karl Kraus

Steady, firm, and kind government of prisoners is the truest humanity and the best exercise of duty. It is with convicts as with children: unseasonable indulgence, indiscreetly granted, leads to mischiefs which we may deplore but cannot repair. — Dorothea Dix

The convicts working the mines were almost all like him. Black, once slave, once free, now slave again. — Yaa Gyasi

Every time we sign a treaty with another country, the treaty (should) include prisoner transfer provisions ... Under these provisions, the country in which the crimes were committed could demand that the convicts' country of origin incarcerate the prisoners for the terms to which they were sentenced ... Foreign felons in U.S. prisons are exacerbating out budget and law enforcement problems ... We will never get countries to take back their prisoners unless we have some leverage. NAFTA gives us that opportunity. — Kathleen Brown

Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals. — Mahatma Gandhi

Prison madness is much the same! Insanity is plentiful in prisons. These days with the drug culture it's not a lot of difference, as a lot of convicts make themselves psychotic and paranoid. Many end up killers, all over petty and minor problems. Where men would once squabble, fight and kill over a ½ oz of bacca they now do the same over a gram of white powder or a bag of brown! — Stephen Richards

In Nigeria they convict by law, not by the truth — Fela Kuti

The Holy Spirit never convicts (Christians) of your sins. He never comes to point out your faults ... . It does not take a revelation from the Holy Spirit to see that you have failed. However, when you know that you've failed what you do need is for the Holy Spirit to convict you of your righteousness. — Joseph Prince

Both men and angels were given the highest gift in the universe, that of free will. We have the power of choice. Evil resides within the problem of choice. It is free will that convicts us. We are guilty of being evil because we can choose good. Free will is the very foundation of love, and the cornerstone of evil. — Joseph B. Lumpkin

We care (about prison education), very simply, because (prisoners) get out. Almost everyone who is locked up now is going to be set free one day. If we treat prisoners like animals the whole time they are locked up, that's what we'll get when they're back on the streets: wild, dangerous animals. — Christopher Zoukis

I'll wear no convicts uniform nor meekly serve my time that Britain might brand Irelands fight 800 years of crime.. — Bobby Sands

For generations, the body of Christ has been defeated and put under a constant siege of condemnation from the accuser because they believe wrongly that the Holy Spirit convicts believers of their sins. — Joseph Prince

It is well known that women carry poison in their pockets. Did you expect a gun? A woman with a gun would be just another policeman. We fall in love with the convicts, remember that. Policemen marry girls from the neighborhood, high school looms over their unions, the first uniform is her prom dress and his black bow tie and white shirt. But the girls are thinking of poison, thinking of poison as the lights go out on the dresser where the revolver has been placed with care for the night. The black shoes, the fine, thick serge of the coat, shoulders and thighs of stallions. And the policemen are usually shot down by someone out of shape, thin, thin, nothing but living bones. Remember that. — Elizabeth Hardwick

Austin sniggered. Barge full of stranded convicts, I'm sure we're top priority for the Empire. — Joe Schreiber

It is difficult to picture the rich, hard-nosed advisors of James I being overly concerned about the rights of vagabonds and felons. But this was a period that was especially suspicious of arbitrary acts by the Crown against individuals. There was no law enabling the crown to exile anyone, including the baser convict, into forced labour. According to legal scholars, the Magna Carta itself protected even them. The Privy Councillors therefore dressed up what was to befall the convicts and presented the decree authorising their transportation as an act of royal mercy. The convicts were to be reprieved from death in exchange for accepting transportation. (71-71) — Don Jordan

The rapacious white tribe who were arriving in increasing numbers, not only as convicts but also as settlers, wanted to own everything they touched. They slashed and burned the wilderness so that they might graze their sheep and grow their corn. They erected fences around the land they now called their own and which henceforth they were prepared to defend with muskets and sometimes even their lives. They built church steeples and prison walls and homes of granite hewn from the virgin rock and timber cut from the umbrageous mountain forests. They possessed everything upon the island, the wild beasts that grazed upon its surface, the birds that flew over it, the fish that swam in its rushing river torrents and the barking seals resting in the quiet bays and secluded inlets. Everything they thought worthwhile was attached to the notion of ownership. — Bryce Courtenay

We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect. — Mervyn Peake

Technology is neutral: It convicts and finds innocents. We must make it a regularized part of the system, giving defendants access to DNA testing and evidence whenever it might be relevant. — Eliot Spitzer

Glorious,' said Steerpike, 'is a dictionary word. We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect. In dead and shackled language, my dears, you *are* glorious, but oh, to give vent to a brand new sounds that might convince you of what I really think of you, as you sit there in your purple splendour, side by side! But no, it is impossible. Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia. Dead words defy me. I can make no sound, dear ladies, that is apt.' 'You could try,' said Clarice. 'We aren't busy.' She smoothed the shining fabric of her dress with her long, lifeless fingers. 'Impossible,' replied the youth, rubbing his chin. 'Quite impossible. Only believe in my admiration for your beauty that will one day be recognized by the whole castle. Meanwhile, preserve all dignity and silent power in your twin bosoms. — Mervyn Peake

When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after. — C.S. Lewis

The Spirit always communicates that He's for you when He convicts you of your sin. — R.C. Sproul

The backfire, my dear boy, of exiling the cleverest criminals of the nation to one place and requiring them to use their ingenuity is that they will
and you can't control what they do with it. — Sam Starbuck

Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal. — Samuel Johnson

Before the counter-culture revolutionary Li Lian was executed in 1971 for criticising the Cultural Revolution, pour policemen pushed her face against the window of a truck, lifted her shirt and cut out her kidneys with a surgical knife,' Mau Sen said, his face stony and white. 'I think that removing the organs of convicts while they are still alive is too much. It completely contravenes medical ethics.' 'This is a dissection class, not a political meeting,' Sun Chunlin said. — Ma Jian

To admonish is better than to reproach for admonition is mild and friendly, but reproach is harsh and insulting; and admonition corrects those who are doing wrong, but reproach only convicts them. — Epictetus

That's terrifying, said Iko, who had acknowledged the truth of Cinder's race much as she'd acknowledged Thorne's convict status: with loyalty and acceptance, but without changing her opinion that Lunars and convicts remained untrustworthy and unredeemable as a general rule. — Marissa Meyer

Australians are descended from a boatload of English convicts, right? So two hundred years in isolation at the bottom of the planet is plenty of time for the language to evolve into some sort of double-speak prison slang. — Elle Lothlorien

Rip the prisons
open
put the
convicts
on
television — Norman Mailer

Even convicts, with whom I have spent some time, are not won over in any other way. Whenever I happened to speak sharply to them, I spoiled everything; on the contrary, when I praised them for their resignation and sympathized with them in their sufferings; when I told them they were fortunate to have their purgatory in this world, when I kissed their chains, showed compassion for their distress, and expressed sorrow for their misfortune, it was then that they listened to me, gave glory to God, and opened themselves to salvation. — Vincent De Paul

So long as State constitutions say that all may vote when twenty-one, save idiots, lunatics, convicts and women, you are brought down politically to the level of those others disfranchised. — Susan B. Anthony

Prisons where people can't even work is the worst punishment you can think of. And I don't think we should put all convicts in such facilities where people are deprived of their freedom. — Vladimir Putin

Since 1990, Oklahoma has executed more convicts on a per capita basis than any other state. No place, not even Texas, comes close. — John Grisham

exploded behind them as they sprinted from the burning building. Paul's quick decision to destroy the rifle shack and all of the artillery inside turned out to be a great idea. It evened the territory, or at least prevented it from getting worse. With only one handgun, the convicts were limited in their scope and threat. Colin was out of the picture, at least for a while, locked away in his ditch jail until someone came along to roll the tractor off Charlie's homemade trap. That meant two of the cons would be searching for them since Dewey would probably stay in the dining hall to oversee the other counselors. Ritch knew Dewey would not — Ben Sharpton

This is why convicts take such pleasure in boasting and exaggerating their own unhappy personalities to the point of burlesque.
They find in boasting the one thing they long for - a semblance of life and liberty. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He who confesses magic or sorcery shall do penance for the time of murder, and shall be treated in the same manner as he who convicts himself of this sin. — Saint Basil

The Holy Spirit not only convicts of sin but also convinces men that Jesus is the righteousness of God. He shows sinners that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. — Billy Graham

At this time of day it should have been open and full of fifty fellow smackheads, crackheads, psychotics, epileptics, schizophrenics, self-harmers, beggars, buskers, car thieves, sherry pushers, ciderheads, just-released-that-morning convicts, ex-army, ex-married-men-with-young-children-who'd-discovered-their-wife-in-bed-with-two-members-of-the-university-rowing-team-at-the-same-time. — Alexander Masters

Dominic took the bait: If the President breaks the law, then the House of Representatives impeaches him and the Senate convicts him, and he's out on the street, — Tom Clancy

God's judgment echoes the sound of hoofbeats, but God's love quietly convicts. — Billy Graham

My suspension was a long-planned move ... and was done to protect would-be convicts in Romanian politics. — Traian Basescu

Let someone who was not from among the convicts try reproaching a prisoner for his crime and abusing him (though it's not in the Russian spirit to reproach a criminal)
there would be no end of cursing. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We shell out hundreds of dollars for tracking bands, something convicts are forced to wear. — Anonymous

It's infuriating that yesterday, my father had to pull all my younger cousins into a room and tell them to be more careful. He had to explain that in some cases, their brown skin convicts them before an offense is even committed. — Janelle Gray

I went to England in the '70s, and I was in my early 20s. There was still a residue of that era of being an underclass or colonial. I assume it must have been a more aggressive and prominent attitude 40 years before that, because Australia internationally wasn't regarded as having much cultural value. We were a country full of sheep and convicts. — Geoffrey Rush

White people found that freedom was indeed indivisible. We had kept saying in the dark days of apartheid's oppression that white South Africans would never be truly free until we blacks were free as well. Many thought it was just another Tutu slogan, irresponsible as all his others had been. Today they were experiencing it as a reality. I used to refer to an intriguing old film The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier was one of the stars. Two convicts escape from a chain gang. They are manacled together, the one white, the other black. They fall into a ditch with slippery sides. The one convict claws his way nearly to the top and out of the ditch but cannot make it because he is bound to his mate, who has been left at the bottom in the ditch. The only way they can make it is together as they strive up and up and up together and eventually make their way over the side wall and out. — Desmond Tutu

Most of today's black convicts have come to understand that they are the most abused victims of an unrighteous order. — George Jackson

As WArden Lawes once said of convicts, no man can be called a failure until he has tried something he really likes, and fails at it. — Sydney J. Harris

Sometimes I feel like a normal person. Sometimes I forget I'm on parole, that I'm not really free. — Jennifer Lane

Ex-convicts prepared the eggs for the White House's Easter Egg Roll. It's nice to see the White House reaching out to former members of Congress. — Jay Leno

The real truth is, the number of convicts is too overwhelming for the means of proper and effectual punishment. I despair of any remedy but that which I wish I could hope for - a great reduction in the amount of crime. — Robert Peel

Too many people hold the idea that psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts. The general public hasn't been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes to understand that psychopaths can be entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs and other successful individuals who may never see the inside of a prison. — Robert D. Hare

Towns like Launceston, Longford, Evandale and other current-day hubs of poppy production in north and central Tasmania had been settled by tens of thousands of British and Irish convicts transported here in the early 19th century as a cheap alternative to prisons in the British Isles. They were followed by thousands of so-called free settlers, who built communities with main streets still lined by two- and three-story pink sandstone buildings. — Anonymous

There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former are of the same nature as the brutal insensitivity of the latter. — Jean Genet

All my contemporaries
hundred-and-fivers or convicts
will tell you how we lived
in barely sentient fear, raising
children for the executioner,
prison, or the torture chamber. — Anna Akhmatova

When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He does so to bring us to repentance and, ultimately, to bring us to reconciliation with God, to forgiveness, to healing, and to cleansing. In other words, when the Spirit of God convicts us of sin, His entire purpose and entire motive is redemptive. When Satan accuses us, perhaps of the same sin, his purpose is to destroy us. That's why Paul says: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. — R.C. Sproul

Prison walls are meant not only to keep convicts in, but to keep the would-be investigator out. — Jessica Mitford

Who are beneficiaries of the Court's protection? Members of various minorities including criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag burners, illegal immigrants (including terrorists), convicts, and pornographers. — Pat Buchanan

There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't. — Neil Gaiman

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind. — H.L. Mencken

Mr. Acme comments that the new foodservice professionals in the cafeteria are two-headed carnival escapees and probably also wanted convicts. He expresses his deep conviction that the names they gave him are aliases and promises that if he finds one more cat whisker in his chicken almandine, he will hand them over to the police, whom, he is sure, will be glad to have them back. — Molly Meadows

[Davidson] Black procured cadavers for research, obtained from the Peking police department. These cadavers were mostly of people who had been executed for various crimes; the police regularly sent Black truckloads of the bodies of the executed convicts. Execution in China was by beheading, and thus the cadavers Black received lacked heads and had mutilated necks. After some time, he asked the police whether there was any possibility of getting better dead bodies for research - corpses that were intact. The next day, he received a shipment of convicts, all chained together, with a note from the police asking him to kill them in any way he chose. — Amir D. Aczel

Convicts are the best audience I ever played for. — Johnny Cash

We have to change public perception of ex-convicts. Most Canadians don't realize that when you come out of prison, you're a complete pariah. You can't get a car loan or money from a bank to start a business. So most end up back in prison within 24 months. It's just so wrong. We need to fix this problem. — Kevin O'Leary

To be sure, following her arrest in 1975, she was unlikely to commit these kinds of crimes again. If the United States were a country that routinely forgave the trespasses of such people, there would be little remarkable about the mercy she received following her conviction. But the United States is not such a country; the prisons teem with convicts who were also led astray and who committed lesser crimes than Patricia. These unfortunate souls have no chance at even a single act of clemency, much less an unprecedented two. Rarely have the benefits of wealth, power, and renown been as clear as they were in the aftermath of Patricia's conviction. — Jeffrey Toobin

In 1837, New York University erected a Gothic Revival building on the northeast corner of the parade grounds at Washington Square, constructed from stones cut by convicts at Sing Sing, the maximum-security prison located about thirty miles up the river in Ossining, New York. The indignant stonecutters of New York's Stonecutters Guild promptly organized New York's first mass labor demonstration in Washington Square, which continued for days. To complete its construction, NYU was forced to call in the 27th Regiment of the National Guard to clear the demonstrators from the site. — James Roman

If you know what He has done at infinite cost to himself - He's put you into a relationship so that you'll never be rejected by Him - then your motivation when you sin is to go get Him. You want fellowship with Him. When the thing that most assures you is the thing that most convicts you, you'll be okay because when you're convicted of sin in a gospel way it drives you toward God.
Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin. Without the gospel we're motivated through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change and it doesn't really change our hearts; it just restrains our hearts. — Timothy Keller

I don't like hiking with convicts carrying machetes. — Susan Orlean

Everyone of us is a potential convict. — Ai Weiwei

Sir, they are a race of convicts and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them short of hanging. — Samuel Johnson