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.
No written law has been more binding
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Money will determine whether the accused
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
There is a point at which even justice
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Well does Heaven have care that no man
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
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.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
When you are younger you get blamed for
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
I know not whether laws be right, or
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.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a
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.
A variety in punishment is of utility,
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
The difference between tax avoidance and
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
How dreadful it is when the right judge
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
Intellectual despair results in neither
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
Law is merely the expression of the will
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
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.
Every instance of a man's suffering the
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
We judge ourselves by what we feel
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
We who live in prison, and in whose
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
I have been studying how I may compare
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.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
There is no greater punishment of
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
