Quotes

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

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

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

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.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

Man is condemned to be free.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.