To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
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.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
No man should be judge in his own case.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
