"It is the nature to be deceived very easily by those who wish and have the power and the intelligence to do so. People believe what they want to believe. Truth isn't liked."
"The history of mankind goes back only for a few thousand years, but men lived and died on this earth for uncounted thousands of years before the dawn of history as we know it today. Yet in all these thousands of years men have learned little. The men of the world today are doing the same things that their ancestors did ages ago. Men have always had intelligence which has never increased. Only knowledge has kept advancing."

"I am 36 years old and have been a criminal all my life. I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in jails, reform schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal. Others may have different theories as to my life but I have no theory about it. I know the facts. If any man ever was a habitual criminal, I am one. In my life time I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God. If either had made any more, I should very cheerfully have broken them also. The mere fact that I have done these things is quite sufficient for the average person. Very few people even consider it worthwhile to wonder why I am what I am and do what I do. All that they think is necessary to do is to catch me, try me, convict me and send me to prison for a few years, make life miserable for me while in prison and then turn me loose again. That is the system that is in practice today in this country. The consequences are that anyone and everyone can see crime and lots of it. Those who are sincere in their desire to put down crime are to be pitied for all of their efforts which accomplish so little in the desired direction. They are the ones who are deceived by their own ignorance and by the trickery and greed of others who profit the most by crime. Much depends upon the point of view of the persons who express themselves on the crime question. Those who roar the loudest and are therefore the most heard are the writers, judges, lawyers, and would-be expert criminologists. All of these people make a nice, soft living out of crime. Therefore, they are directly interested in the subject. They don't produce a damn thing. All they do is shoot off their mouths and push a fountain pen. And for doing this they live nice and soft. They wear good clothes, eat the best foods, live in nice homes, have the best of everything the world produces. They have a nice, soft graft, and they know it, too. They are not a lot of chumps like the criminals. Don't think for a minute that they are going around really meaning to do as they say they wish to. Put down crime. Not a chance. There will be no pick and shovel for that sort of people. That's what would happen to them if they really did put down crime."----------------------------Carl Panzram

"Under the present system, the best and the worst you can do is just as you are doing now and this is making bad matters worse. Before you can ever put down crime you must change the system a whole hell of a lot. Also you must change your educational system. You must absolutely divorce the schools and prisons from all politics. As things are now, you are making criminals much faster than you are reforming those who are already in existence. Every child has some criminal tendencies. It is your place to correct those traits and teach them the right way to live while they are young and their minds are forming. Then when they do reach the age of reason and action, it will be quite natural for them to live clean, upright, honorable lives. In that way you will stop crime at its source before it begins."------------------------Carl Panzram.

"This country is having a war right now [1928] and very few people even realize the fact. War, in the final analysis, is merely murder and robbery and the expenditure of life and property. This country today is having a crime war. Many of thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of property are lost every year. Crime is increasing 10 per cent each year. All society is up in arms to combat crime and criminals. They are using every possible method that the law can devise. The best thing they have been able to do so far is to build bigger and stronger jails and prisons and fill them full of criminals. Just as soon as a prison is filled to capacity, they start right in building more and more. And they are all full. But still there are more criminals every day. There is no end to them under the present system. Even the most superficial investigator of this question of crime knows this to be a fact. All of your police, judges, lawyers, wardens, doctors, National Crime Commissions and writers have combined to find out and remedy the cause and effect of crime. With all of the knowledge and power at their command, they have accomplished nothing except to make conditions worse instead of better. This is not a theory. This is a fact. Statistics prove it beyond any possibility of a doubt. This being the case then they and their system must be wrong. Those who make and enforce the laws are more guilty than those who commit the crimes against the law. The criminal does not profit by his crimes. It is the law makers and the law enforcers who do profit the most. They, in reality, are the real cause of the most crime."
"If you think that you can stop crime by catching us, locking us up, punishing us by brutal treatment, hanging or electrocuting us, sterilizing or castrating us, then you are a fool for thinking that way. That only makes bad matters worse."-----------------------Carl Panzram

"In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry."
"A child is very easily led. Any child, if properly taught, will live the way he is taught to live. All criminals are merely overgrown children. It is in your hands to make us or break us. We, by our own efforts, are failures in life, simply because we don't know any better. We don't know how to live decent upright lives. The main causes of why we are what we are is because of our improper teaching, lack of knowledge and our environments. Every man's philosophy is colored by his environments. If you don't want us to rob, rape and murder you, then it is your place to see that the mental and moral misfits are properly taught a sufficient amount of useful and sensible knowledge and put into the proper environment where they can be best fitted to exist in life. Otherwise, they will be misfits and failures and you are the actual cause because they don't know any better, and you do. My own case is very similar to many thousands of others. I was born a normal human being. My parents were ignorant, and thru their improper teachings and improper environment, I was gradually led into the wrong way of living. Little by little from bad to worse. I was sent to a reform school at the age of 11 years. From that day to this, all of my life has been lived among moral and mental misfits. All of my associates, all of my surroundings, the atmosphere of deceit, treachery, brutality, degeneracy, hypocrisy, and everything that is bad and nothing that is good. Is it unnatural that I should have absorbed these things and have become what I am today, a treacherous, degenerate, brutal, human savage, devoid of all decent feeling, absolutely without conscience, morals, pity, sympathy, principle, or any single good trait? Why am I what I am? I'll tell you why. I did not make myself what I am. Others had the making of me."-----------------------Carl Panzram

"If someone had a young tiger cub in a cage and then mistreated it until it got savage and bloodthirsty and then turned it loose to prey on the rest of the world, to go anywhere and kill anyone it wanted to, then there would be a hell of a roar from those in danger of the mad tiger. Everyone would believe that to be the wrong thing to do. But if some people do the same thing to other people, then the world is surprised, shocked and offended because they get robbed, raped, and killed. Yet this is exactly what is being done every day in this country. They done it to me and then don't like it when I give them the same dose they gave me. They do it to thousands of others and the others in turn retaliate by robbery and murder. If you don't like to be robbed, raped, burned, or killed then you stop your own injustices, your own dirty work. Stop your lying and hypocrisy. Live decent lives yourselves and teach others who are not able to do right unless they are taught right. If you get abused, robbed or killed, you have it coming to you, so don't blame it all on the one who harms you. Some of the blame is yours for not making it your business to see to it that such conditions should not exist among your fellow men. If you put a lot of the powers in the hands of the public servants and they misuse their power, you are at fault also. I have only a little knowledge but I have as much intelligence as the average person and I know that I was taught wrong. I could have been taught properly, and if I had been, I feel sure that I would have led a far different life than I have done. You are to blame more so than I. That's my belief. If you are going to go on teaching others as you have taught me, then you must suffer the same as I."

"It seemed to me that everything was always right for the one who was the strongest and every single thing I done was wrong. Everybody said so, anyway. But right or wrong, I got plenty of abuse. Everybody thought it was alright to deceive me, lie to me and kick me around whenever they felt like it, and they felt like it pretty regular. That is the way my life was lived until I was about eleven years old."
"I have done as I was taught to do. I am no different than any other. You taught me how to live my life, and I have lived as you taught me. If you continue teaching others as you taught me, then you as well as they must pay the price, and the price is very expensive. You lose your all, even life."
"I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me, and I believe the only way to reform people is to kill 'em. My motto is: Rob 'em all, rape 'em all, and kill 'em all."
"I wish all mankind had one neck so I could choke it."----------------------Carl Panzram