Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
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.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
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.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
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!
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
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.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
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 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.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
