Best 450 quotes in «jail quotes» category

In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'

I never understood society. i undersand that it works somehow and that it functions as a reality and that its realities are necessary to keep us from worse realities. but all i sense are that are plenty of police and jails and judges and laws and that what is meant to protect me is breaking me down.

In prison, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.

In many respects, people on the outside suffered more than those of us in jail. In prison, we ate three times a day, we had clothing, we had free medical services, and we could sleep for 12 hours.

In the 1920s, we thought the problems associated with alcohol could be solved by police and jails. Prohibition taught us we were wrong. The strategy of the present drug war is Prohibition redux.

In this country, don't forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There's no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it's the worst kind of hell for those who love you.

I said something idiotic like, as [William] Shakespeare says, "Action is eloquence," and the judge just frowned at me and gave me a couple weeks in jail.

In some countries, if you carry the Gospel, you can go to jail. You can't carry a cross, because you'll have to pay a fine. But still, the heart rejoices.

I spent two months in a jail once. In a Mexican border town.

I saw an Elvis Presley movie Jailhouse Rock, where he gets out of jail and makes his own records and takes them to the radio stations himself. And then, he puts records in the store. After seeing that, I made records an put them in stores.

I start from the supposition that the world is topsyturvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside down.

I read one time that I am permanently banned from Yankee Stadium and that I could never ever go back. This article mentioned, supposedly, that I did something in the early 2000s at Yankee Stadium, and I got arrested, and supposedly, allegedly, I went to jail for something that I did. I read that about myself one time and I thought that was pretty fascinating.

It costs a hell of a lot more money to put somebody in jail than send them to the University of Virginia.

I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into criminals is wrong. It's when you're in jail you really become a criminal.

It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.

I support the death penalty for the kingpin, the guy at the top, but I don't think you should throw a drug offender in jail for five years, and let a mugger out after a year.

I think I've always wanted to be a role model, and I think ... everyone should try to live their life like they'd like to be a role model. I think it's like the thing keeping me out of jail.

I think it's critically important for people to understand that this system of mass incarceration governs not just those who find themselves in prison on any given day, but also all those who are in jail, on probation or parole, as well as all those who are just months away from being locked up again because they are unable to find work or housing due to their criminal record.

I think that it's so powerful for me to go see someone like Bridget Everett at Joe's Pub and watch her weave her songs in and out of these funny, tragic stories - you can talk and sing and it's not this horrible offense, you're going to get thrown in artistic jail.

It is wrong to take half or more of what people earn; wrong to force some people to pay for the support of others, threatening them with jail if they refuse (are in "noncompliance").

I think that compared to other politicians who have been put in jail in the past, compared to the human-rights activists in history who have had to face political prosecution, the activists in Hong Kong nowadays are already quite lucky compared to that.

It's a time in my life that I'm glad it's behind me. I've had time to reflect on the whole thing. I want to talk about it one time and kind of lay it to rest. I'm ready to put it behind me. I've learned my lesson. I don't recommend the experience I had to anyone, really. It's not something that was fun. It's not a destination you would choose.

I think it is now widely understood that the so-called "War on Drugs" has largely been a failure. Too many people have developed criminal records for smoking marijuana. Too many people have gone to jail for nonviolent crimes. So I think it's important for us to rethink the war on drugs.

It is unconscionable that 10,000 boys have died in Vietnam. If 10,000 American women had mind enough they could end the war, if they were committed to the task, even if it meant going to jail.

It's not just the over $8 billion that we would be saving in law enforcement; it's also the over $8 billion that we would be making by taxing marijuana... We are filling our jails with nonviolent drug offenders - predominantly young, predominantly African American... It's a great beyond left and right issue. It has support across the political spectrum and also the support of the majority of the American people.

It seems like Michael Vick is going to jail for dog fighting. Hopefully, they won't have guard dogs.

It's okay to feel the need for protection if there is a real external threat. But to feel protective from the inside, it's a kind of jail: you get so protective that you cannot get out of the box.

It's not that I don't want to become famous or that I'm obsessed by my work as an actress, but it's all about not limiting myself, such as putting myself in a little jail that I can escape from.

It's like being on Death Row in an American jail. You are waiting for the door handle to turn, not knowing whether it's a reprieve or just your final breakfast before being executed.

It's such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street.

I've been involved in activities with other people who were put in jail. We were protesting the closing of the prison farm program at the prison I used in a previous book, Alias Grace. Some of us also put up money in order to save the heirloom herd of cows there. So I own half a cow!

I've got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot, success is my only option, failure's not.

I've never been arrested in my life. Never had cuffs put on me, never been charged with a crime, never spent one day in jail.

I've never been to jail. I've never been arrested. I've never been locked up.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who's spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

I wanted to look at how people deal with death. Why is Henry Kissinger not in jail and Charles Manson is?

I was a federal public defender during the most important years of the drug war. I saw people go to jail for nothing, and go to jail for a long time.

I was pretty much a mess out of primary school. I really experienced a lot more of that stuff from the ages of seven to twelve, where there was a really popular girl at my school, and I was obsessed with her, like you'd go to jail for that stuff today. I'm so embarrassed to say this, but I was in tears one day, because I couldn't sit next to her.

I was really in to shiny things when I was younger and I stole a shiny tag for my dog. I didn't get caught. I hope I don't go to jail for that.

I was watchin' the news the other day, and I heard them talking about a criminal named Brian Regan same spelling and everything. He's gonna be in jail for the rest of his life. So I'm sitting there doing a crossword puzzle and all of a sudden I hear, It is unknown whether the charges against Brian Regan will lead to his execution. Guess I can put this down. Honey, did we pay that parking ticket?!

I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom. . . . Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?

I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.

I went to the graduation the other night of my first great grandchild - he's 21 or 22; and right at the graduation I looked, and 92 percent of those who graduated at the University of Illinois were females. Where can a Black female, who are now the lawyers, the engineers; they are the ones graduating with top degrees; where will they find in a Black male a counterpart that is equal to them? We are filling the jails, we are filling the prisons.

I will not accept racism at all. It's unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them.

I will probably go to jail, but do you know what? There's a lot of good people who go to jail.

I would like to start a discussion about ending solitary confinement. I'd like to start a discussion about the removal of MO wings - an "MO" is a "Mental Observation" inmate - from Rikers Island, to be set up in mental health institutions. You can't put people in jail for having mental disorders.

I was one of those people raised by a woman who was what I call a prisoner of war. She was captured, she didn't want to be there, she was unhappy, she was banging away in the kitchen, the way that a prisoner would bang on her jail cell, you know, really unhappy. She had to cook for nine people with really little money, so she really just got burned out. So I didn't know that you could actually cook and it would be calming, pleasurable.

I would never go to jail to protect animals or plants or wilderness. For me, it’s about the people.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.