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.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
We are prisoners of ideas.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
