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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
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.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
History is full of people who went to
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
No written law has been more binding
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The punishment can be remitted; the
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
If you want total security, go to
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
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.
It is safer that a bad man should not be
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
By noiselessly going to a prison a
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
I was in prison, and you came unto me.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
The torment of human frustration,
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
It is better that ten guilty persons
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
Our task must be to free ourselves from
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
I just remember that disturbing feeling
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
There are dreadful punishments enacted
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
