I have been studying how I may compare
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
When it comes to freedom, we are but
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Since 1957, black people have
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
If we were brought to trial for the
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Governments have tried to stop crime
Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.
A variety in punishment is of utility,
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
By noiselessly going to a prison a
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
If punishment reaches not the mind and
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
The severest justice may not always be
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and
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.
One of the problems that the marijuana
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
I can tell you this on a stack of
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
In my country we go to prison first and
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
