I never sympathise with the accused unless there’s a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don’t ever sympathise with the criminal.

I’m interested in two things. I’m interested in truth and I’m interested in fairness.

There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Let’s be clear about this, and let’s be clear: we should not be creating incentives to house people in prison. We should be creating incentives instead to shut the revolving door into prison.

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

You don’t send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like ‚shooting an unarmed child,‘ when that ‚child‘ was beating him bloody.

I was tormented with guilt for years and years. In fact, it was so bad that if I didn’t feel wrong, I didn’t feel right!

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.

Don’t hire a prison consultant.

More law, less justice.

Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

An index is a great leveller.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

Writers are always writing about infidelity. It’s so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you’re also this other person. The innocent life and the guilty life. My God, it’s just full of stuff for a writer. I doubt it will ever go out of fashion.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.

I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 – the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot.

Female psychotic bosses can be particularly devilish. They will tend to mix in a lot of passive aggression, making you feel guilty for all kinds of things.

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

He incurs a fearful amount of guilt who in the least promotes the aim of the Evil One by trampling upon a tender conscience in a child.

Sometimes you can’t prioritise family and you feel guilty.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

‚Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.‘ Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That’s not a tax raise. That’s called fairness where I come from.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

Most states in the union where the death penalty is theoretically on the books don’t have executions.

One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

None of my peers avoided prison. None of ‚em.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.