The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
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 sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
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.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
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.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
Vices are not crimes.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
