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.
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.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Vices are not crimes.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
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.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
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.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
