Quotes about jail
page 4

“We played against each other like puppets, swearing you got pull
When the only pull you got is the wool over your eyes
Getting knowledge in jail like a blessing in disguise
Look in the skies for god, what you see besides the smog
Is broken dreams flying away on the wings of the obscene.”

Talib Kweli (1975) American rapper

Respiration (track 11)
Albums, Blackstar (1998)

God, Dreams, Knowledge, Flying

“"jail isnt real," i assure myself as i close my eyes and ram the hallmark gift shop with my shitty bronco”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/181225396694560769] Tweets by year, 2012

“I wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and firehoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, some of us go to jail just like Martin Luther King did on trumped up charges. Tough times are coming.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-04-09
Beck: "I wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and firehoses are released or opened on us"
Media Matters for America
2010-04-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201004090026
2010s, 2010

Dogs, Time

“Ah, Mr. Douglas! Mr. Douglas! if the little child just born to you were stolen from your arms and sold into slavery, and you went through fire and water to rescue her, would you say so airily, so jauntily, with such pleasant humor, that if you went to steal her you trust you would be caught and put in jail with other thieves? And yet not more do you love that child hanging at this moment upon her mother's bosom, than an old slave mother whom I know in the hospital across the river loved the child who forty years ago was torn from her breast and sold, and of whose fate for forty years that silent, sorrowing Rachel has not heard?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: Mister Douglas in his speech at Memphis expressly says, 'Whenever a territory has a climate, soil, and productions making it the interest of the inhabitants to encourage slave property, they will pass a slave-code and give it encouragement'. He adds that they have a right to do it, and in his late speech at Columbus he declares that there must be no interference with any action of any state, insisting, according to the report, amid great laughter at the exquisite humor of the witticism, 'If you go over to Virginia to steal her Negroes, I trust she will catch you and put you in jail with other thieves'. Ah, Mr. Douglas! Mr. Douglas! if the little child just born to you were stolen from your arms and sold into slavery, and you went through fire and water to rescue her, would you say so airily, so jauntily, with such pleasant humor, that if you went to steal her you trust you would be caught and put in jail with other thieves? And yet not more do you love that child hanging at this moment upon her mother's bosom, than an old slave mother whom I know in the hospital across the river loved the child who forty years ago was torn from her breast and sold, and of whose fate for forty years that silent, sorrowing Rachel has not heard?

Love, Fate, Water

“Some people are suffering. Some people are hungry this morning. Some people are still living with segregation and discrimination this morning. I'm going to preach about it. I’m going to fight for them. I’ll die for them if necessary, because I got my guidelines clear. And the God that I serve and the God that called me to preach told me that every now and then I'll have to go to jail for them. Every now and then I’ll have to agonize and suffer for the freedom of his children. I even may have to die for it. But if that’s necessary, I'd rather follow the guidelines of God than to follow the guidelines of men.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Guidelines for a Constructive Church (1966)
Context: When the church is true to its guidelines, it sets out to preach deliverance to them that are captive. This is the role of the church: to free people. This merely means to free those who are slaves. Now if you notice some churches, they never read this part. Some churches aren't concerned about freeing anybody. Some white churches face the fact Sunday after Sunday that their members are slaves to prejudice, slaves to fear. You got a third of them, or a half of them or more, slaves to their prejudices. And the preacher does nothing to free them from their prejudice so often. Then you have another group sitting up there who would really like to do something about racial injustice, but they are afraid of social, political, and economic reprisals, so they end up silent. And the preacher never says anything to lift their souls and free them from that fear. And so they end up captive. You know this often happens in the Negro church. You know, there are some Negro preachers that have never opened their mouths about the freedom movement. And not only have they not opened their mouths, they haven’t done anything about it. And every now and then you get a few members: "They talk too much about civil rights in that church." I was talking with a preacher the other day and he said a few of his members were saying that. I said, "Don't pay any attention to them. Because number one, the members didn't anoint you to preach. And any preacher who allows members to tell him what to preach isn't much of a preacher."
For the guidelines made it very clear that God anointed. No member of Ebenezer Baptist Church called me to the ministry. You called me to Ebenezer, and you may turn me out of here, but you can’t turn me out of the ministry, because I got my guidelines and my anointment from God Almighty. And anything I want to say, I'm going to say it from this pulpit. It may hurt somebody, I don’t know about that; somebody may not agree with it. But when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God is upon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God’s word gets upon me, I've got to say it, I’ve got to tell it all over everywhere. And God has called me to deliver those that are in captivity.
Some people are suffering. Some people are hungry this morning. Some people are still living with segregation and discrimination this morning. I'm going to preach about it. I’m going to fight for them. I’ll die for them if necessary, because I got my guidelines clear. And the God that I serve and the God that called me to preach told me that every now and then I'll have to go to jail for them. Every now and then I’ll have to agonize and suffer for the freedom of his children. I even may have to die for it. But if that’s necessary, I'd rather follow the guidelines of God than to follow the guidelines of men. The church is called to set free those that are captive, to set free those that are victims of the slavery of segregation and discrimination, those who are caught up in the slavery of fear and prejudice.

Men, God, Children, People

“Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like livin' in jail.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Native Son (1940)

“There is a fine line in the Third World between half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe and half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe so they can throw you in jail.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

World, Waiting

“Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

“The masters in all ages have put men like Debs in jail because it is the truth-teller that the masters fear most.”

Scott Nearing (1883–1983) American activist

The Debs Decision https://ia902703.us.archive.org/33/items/TheDebsDecision/Debs.htm (1919) Context: The masters in all ages have put men like Debs in jail because it is the truth-teller that the masters fear most. They fear the Truth; they fear the Light; they fear Justice; and the man who turns on the Light and speaks the Truth and cries out for Justice—is their greatest enemy. So they have always tried this process of putting ideas into jail.

Men, Truth, Age, Fear

“I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Uttarpara Address (1909)
Context: I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies.

Men

“Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"There but for Fortune" (1963); Ochs here paraphrases a proverbial expression "There, but for the grace of God, go I", which was itself a paraphrase of John Bradford's expression on seeing other prisoners being led to their execution as heretics to be burned at the stake: There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford. (as quoted in Problems in the Relations of God and Man (1911) by Clement Charles Julian Webb, p. 107)
Lyrics
Context: Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I.

“Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced — there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

Nobel Lecture (12 December 1930)
Context: Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced — there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail. And, much harder to endure than any raging condemnation, a certain number of old acquaintances among journalists, what in the galloping American slang we call the "I Knew Him When Club", have scribbled that since they know me personally, therefore I must be a rather low sort of fellow and certainly no writer. But if I have now and then received such cheering brickbats, still I, who have heaved a good many bricks myself, would be fatuous not to expect a fair number in return.

Books, Way, Reading

“You are the jailer and the jailed,
You the impaler and the one that your own
Million-fleshed self in dreams by night
do hold in thrall and now at noon must kill.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

“In his youth he felt an urge to reform the world, but during the latter years of his life he decided that he would be doing rather well if he kept himself out of jail.”

Robert Quillen (1887–1948) American journalist

Self-written "Obituary" (24 March 1932), published 16 years prior to his actual death, as quoted in The Voice of Small-Town America : The Selected Writings of Robert Quillen, 1920-1948 (2008) by John Hammond Moore, p. 181
Context: He was a writer of paragraphs and short editorials. He always hoped to write something of permanent value, but the business of making a living took most of his time and he never got around to it. In his youth he felt an urge to reform the world, but during the latter years of his life he decided that he would be doing rather well if he kept himself out of jail. … When the last clod had fallen, workmen covered the grave with a granite slab bearing the inscription: "Submitted to the Publisher by Robert Quillen."

Life, Youth, World

“I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats — any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death — then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Book One, Ch. 2 : A Girl from a Different World, § 10, as translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari (1958)
Variant translations:
I think that if the beast dormant in man could be stopped by the threat of, whatever, the lockup or requital beyond the grave, the highest emblem of mankind would be a lion tamer with his whip, and not the preacher who sacrifices himself. But the point is precisely this, that for centuries man has been raised above the animals and borne aloft not by the rod, but by music: the irresistibility of the unarmed truth, the attraction of its example. It has been considered up to now that the most important thing in the Gospels is the moral pronouncements and rules, but for me the main thing is that Christ speaks in parables from daily life, clarifying the truth with the light of everyday things. At the basis of this lies the thought that communion among mortals is immortal and that life is symbolic because it is meaningful.
Book One, Part 2 : A Girl from a Different World, § 10, as translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2010)
I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrificed himself.... What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
Paraphrase of the 1958 translation, as quoted in The New York Times (1 January 1978)
Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Context: I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats — any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death — then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. But don’t you see, this is just the point — what has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example. It has always been assumed that the most important things in the Gospels are the ethical maxims and commandments. But for me the most important thing is that Christ speaks in parables taken from life, that He explains the truth in terms of everyday reality. The idea that underlies this is that communion between mortals is immortal, and that the whole of life is symbolic because it is meaningful.

Death, Thinking, Sleep

“I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Quoted in The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy (2000), p. 112, and Think, Act, and Invest Like Warren Buffett: The Winning Strategy to Help You Achieve Your Financial and Life Goals (2012), p. 22 
Context: I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge. … The approach and strategies [of bridge and stock investing] are very similar. In the stock market you do not base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. With bridge, you need to adhere to a disciplined bidding system. While there is no one best system, there is one that works best for you. Once you choose a system, you need to stick with it.

“Government clerics who enter the holy city of Ghom and its seminaries backed by money and not-so-hidden coercive powers of the state are a thorn in the side of independent clerics who are more interested in faith and morality than power. In the younger, more popular days of this theocracy the schism was not obvious. Now, with masses of people on the streets, crushed by the orders of the head government cleric, the rift is wide open. The grand ayatollahs can no longer keep quiet about rape and torture in jails in the name of Islam. Unlike government mullahs, these senior clerics get their support from the people, so they can never be far away from popular feelings.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Mark Pitzke, 'Iran Is My True and Only Home' http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/iran-s-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-iran-is-my-true-and-only-home-a-641984-2.html, August 12, 2009. Interviews, 2009

Money, People, Faith, Feeling

“The free world must put pressure on Iran. It should no longer give in to the nuclear blackmail of a terrorist regime that is seeking to acquire the [atomic] bomb. The outside world should play the card of Iranians themselves, talking, no longer to the jailers, but to those who are jailed. One should no longer fall into the trap of changing seats for the cards are the same even if different ones are put on the table every now and then. What is necessary is a democratic civil disobedience campaign supported by the international community. From now on, the confrontation is inevitable.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Michel Bole-Richard, The regime is archaic. The country is on the brink of explosion http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=4&page=6, Le Monde, June 18, 2005. Interviews, 2005

World, Communication, Support, Change

“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Steve Jobs

Fools, Freedom

“As the essays kept appearing, so did the five male lawyers (not the same ones, different ones, but they seemed to hunt in packs). And so did the criminal cases, mostly for contempt of court. One of them ended in a very short jail sentence, another is still pending. The debates were often acrimonious. Sometimes violent. But always important. Almost every essay got me into enough trouble to make me promise myself that I wouldn’t write another. But inevitably, situations arose in which the effort of keeping quiet set up such a noise in my head, such an ache in my blood, that I succumbed, and wrote.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy: Literature provides shelter. That's why we need it (abridged version of her PEN America Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture,) The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/arundhati-roy-literature-shelter-pen-america (13 May 2019) Articles

Making love, Effort, Appearance

“It was just noon that Saturday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man.”

William Faulkner book Intruder in the Dust

The opening sentence of the novel, Ch. 1
Intruder in the Dust (1948)

Night

“In just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner. And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government. And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U. S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

President Hugo Chavez's Speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Country

“What was the most important thing for (Mandela) was his release from prison and nothing else. He cherished that freedom more than anything else and forgot why he was put in jail.”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

As quoted in "WATCH: 'Fascinating' video of Mugabe talking 'non-racialism' like Mandela goes viral on social media" https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/watch-fascinating-video-of-mugabe-talking-non-racialism-like-mandela-20170916 (16 September 2017), News24, South Africa 2010s

Freedom

“He was simple living follower of Gandhi who spent many years in British jails fighting non-violently for Indians freedom. He had a big walrus like mustache and his magnificent face always seemed to be holding back a smile at the strange twist of history which took him from the British viceroy’s jail into the Viceroy’s own palace with the Viceroy’s own bodyguard. He was such a warm and unostentatious person that the great long halls and chambers must have seemed oppressive and unnatural.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

Chester Bowles, American Ambassador to India in: p. 14
Presidents of India, 1950-2003

Smile, History, Freedom, Fight

“Rather, the license to institute compulsory practices leads to legalized and institutionalized aggression and robbery. Enabling political structures to plunder one in the name of others perverts the meaning of individual human rights. Positive rights grant governmental agencies the invasive authority to force citizens to surrender their earnings and property so that others may indulge in free or subsidized food, education, housing, medical care and so forth. Positive rights imposed obligations, a duty that must be fulfilled, or the violator would be arrested and jailed, thus nullifying the role of individual autonomy that was the inspiration for the American Revolution. In other words, positive rights make society sovereign, rather than the individual.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 4

Education, Making love, Food, Housing

“The American Left champions causes such as gay rights (including gay marriage), equality for women (suffrage, the right to work, etc.), and religious freedom (usually in the form of freedom from religion). Yet, fundamentalist Islam opposes nearly everything the American Left stands for. In many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Iran, a top government official recently said that torture followed by death is the appropriate punishment for being gay. In Saudi Arabia, women can’t vote, run for public office, or drive cars. Women are routinely jailed and beaten for merely being in the presence of a man not related to them. The Saudi version of Dr. Phil provides televised lessons to men on how to properly beat their wives. In many Islamic countries, women are forced into arranged marriages and held as property by their husbands, something not exactly in line with progressive Western thinking. In some Muslim countries, women aren’t even allowed to decide what clothes to wear. To reveal even the smallest patch of skin is a crime. Religious freedom is often nonexistent under Islamic rule. In countries like Afghanistan and Iran, people who convert from Islam to another religion face public execution. So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?”

Chuck Hustmyre (1963) American journalist

2000s, 2009, The Left's love affair with Islam (2009)

Love, Death, Women, Men

“Bobby Seale is going through all types of physical and mental torture. But that’s alright, because we said even before this happened, and we’re going to say it after this and after I’m locked up and after everybody’s locked up, that you can jail revolutionaries, but you can’t jail the revolution. You might run a liberator like Eldridge Cleaver out of the country, but you can’t run liberation out of the country. You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hutton, but you can’t murder freedom fighting, and if you do, you’ll come up with answers that don’t answer, explanations that don’t explain, you’ll come up with conclusions that don’t conclude, and you’ll come up with people that you thought should be acting like pigs that’s acting like people and moving on pigs. And that’s what we’ve got to do. So we’re going to see about Bobby regardless of what these people think we should do, because school is not important and work is not important. Nothing’s more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”

Fred Hampton (1948–1969) African-American activist

Excerpt from Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/12/4/watch_the_assassination_of_fred_hampton.

People, School, Thinking, Freedom

“What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul.”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

John Lewis, "Congressman John Lewis on Aretha Franklin: ‘One of God’s precious gifts’" https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/congressman-john-lewis-aretha-franklin-one-god-precious-gifts/PRXHP5dgRpjhhuIUdjGEsO/, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 16, 2018)

People, Faith, Music, Soul

“We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, in another act of hypocrisy, has been set free at the age of seventy-two, almost unable to speak, paralyzed, after spending a lifetime in jail. Albizu Campos is a symbol of the as yet unfree but indomitable Latin America. Years and years of prison, almost unbearable pressures in jail, mental torture, solitude, total isolation from his people and his family, the insolence of the conqueror and its lackeys in the land of his birth--nothing broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of its people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot who confers honor upon our America.”

Pedro Albizu Campos (1891–1965) Puerto Rican politician and independence advocate

Che Guevara, in a speech given to the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations on December 11, 1964. http://www.thechestore.com/Che-Guevara-United-Nations.php http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=5 http://cheguevaralies.blogspot.com/2006/11/che-guevaras-marxist-speach-at-united.html

People, Age, Family, Birth

“Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career preaching that anybody who does drugs has got to go right to jail -- do not pass go, no questions asked, right to jail -- gets caught doing thirty oxycontin a day.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Thirty oxycontin?! Do you have any idea how high that is?! I don't, and I've been pretty high!
I'm Swiss (2005)

Question

“There is, of course, a tipping point. There have been times when I realized that someone can’t be helped, because they continue doing the wrong things. Typically, the only time I cut someone off is when they’re in jail, because I can’t help them there.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Stardom Doesn’t Change Where You’re From (April 02, 2014)

Time, Help

“And if they’re accused of a crime, as DeSean’s friends have been, should that reflect poorly on me? Consider that for every several guys I try to help who end up dead or in jail, there’s another person I was able to rescue from a similar end. Should I give up on everybody out of fear of being dirtied by the media? Sorry, but I was born in this dirt. NFL teams understand that. The Seattle Seahawks get it. The Philadelphia Eagles apparently do not.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Stardom Doesn’t Change Where You’re From (April 02, 2014)

Fear, Guy, Understanding, Help

“We have come to the point where we are able to say to those who will even use violence to block us, we will match you capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet you physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. And so throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Love, Children, Making love, Law

“Jail him, now!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Cadeia nele, já!

(pt) Source: [9 December 2009, Morre Luiz Carlos Alborghetti, dono do bordão 'bandido bom é bandido morto', https://extra.globo.com/tv-e-lazer/morre-luiz-carlos-alborghetti-dono-do-bordao-bandido-bom-bandido-morto-209786.html, Portuguese, Extra, Editora Globo S/A, 31 March 2019]

“If it's illegal to be a Deejay, throw my ass in jail ...”

Dj Parisa (1972) Youtuber & DJ

“The coronavirus has starkly revealed what most of us already knew: The concentration of wealth in America has created a health care system in which the wealthy can buy care others can’t. It’s also created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency, and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail... The system is rigged. But we can fix it... The great divide in American politics isn’t between right and left. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system, and the vast majority who have little or none. Forget politics as you’ve come to see it – as contests between Democrats and Republicans. The real divide is between democracy and oligarchy....”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/the-system-is-rigged-but-we-can-fix-it/, Alternet, 24 March 2020

Children, Health, Education, Justice

“Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people.… Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Dialogue with trade unionists, February 2, 1999 https://web.archive.org/web/20051226071614/http://zpedia.org/Chomsky_on_pot Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999

People, Marijuana

“We do not jail people for their opinions[.]”

Mohammad Javad Zarif (1960) Iranian politician

On 29 April 2015, Zarif appearing on the Charlie Rose talk-show, when asked about the detention of Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter held in Iran for the past nine months. According to [Iranian foreign minister angers supporters with human rights claim, 1 May 2015, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/01/iranian-foreign-minister-angers-supporters-human-rights-charlie-rose]
Interview to CNN, Revolution

People

“Jail? Jeez. When I was a teenager, I was in and out of jail. One fight there, another here – at the age of 16, I killed someone. A person. During a fight. Stabbing. I was 16. Just because we looked at each other.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

Original: (tl) Kulong? Ay 'sus. Kulong, eh noong teenager ako pasok-labas-pasok ako sa kulungan. Rambol dito, rambol – at the age of 16, may pinatay na ako. Tao talaga. Rambol. Saksak. Noong 16 years old iyon, nagkatinginan lang. Duterte claims he stabbed someone to death as a 16-year-old https://www.rappler.com/nation/187906-rodrigo-duterte-stab-16-years-old(November 9, 2017)

Age, Fight, Personality

“You are the jailer and the jailed,
You the impaler and the one that your own
Million-fleshed self in dreams by night
do hold in thrall and now at noon must kill.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

Dreams, Self-confidence, Night

“I signed a bill that gives you 10 years in jail if you rip down any federal statue.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2020s, 2020, October

“Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail. Let's have trial by combat.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

Quoted by * 2021-01-06
Rudy Giuliani Loses Honorary Degree From Middlebury College in Capitol Riot's Aftermath
Alexandra Garrett
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/rudy-giuliani-loses-honorary-degree-middlebury-college-capitol-riots-aftermath-1561331

Fools

“We won’t have a president that threatens people with jail for just criticizing him”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

On the campaign trail for Joe Biden in [ Obama Hits Campaign Trail In South Florida, Criticizing Trump's Behavior As Worse Than Florida Man https://www.wlrn.org/2020-10-25/obama-hits-campaign-trail-in-south-florida-criticizing-trumps-behavior-as-worse-than-florida-man October 25, 2020 2020, October 2020

People

“But I understand I have no right to give up, because people who are in jail didn't give up. They now are suffering for us. Only these people, the families of those repressed in Belarus, have given me the energy to go on.”

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (1982) Belarusian politician and educator

"Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says 'harsh' sanctions needed" in DW https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-opposition-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-says-harsh-sanctions-needed/a-57869000 (12 June 2021)

People, Family, Understanding, Suffering

“The prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the jails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards' unions, and legislative and court agendas.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Six

Communication, Country

“I am one of the happiest people on the earth. There are people who are gunning for me. I really don't know whether I will live for another day. But, today I'm alive. And, today I am fighting. They can kill me. They can jail me. But, they cannot kill my spirit.”

Swati Maliwal (1984) women activist who fights for women rights

TEDx Talks, accessed May 1, 2021

People, Fight

“While jails and prisons have been dominant institutions for the control of men, mental institutions have served a similar purpose for women. That is, deviant men have been constructed as criminal, while deviant women have been constructed as insane.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Four

Women, Men

“School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 19

School, Learning

“Sickness, jail, poverty, getting drunk—I had to experience all that myself. Sinning makes the world go round. You can't be so stuck up, so inhuman that you want to be pure, your soul wrapped up in a plastic bag, all the time. You have to be God and the devil, both of them. Being a good medicine man means being right in the midst of the turmoil, not shielding yourself from it. It means experiencing life in all its phases. It means not being afraid of cutting up and playing the fool now and then. That's sacred too.”

John Fire Lame Deer (1903–1976) American activist

Source: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (1972), p. 76

Life, God, World, Fools

“I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was okay. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.
I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it.”

Lindsey Graham (1955) United States Senator from South Carolina

Source: 30 January 2022 reported by TGP https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/hope-go-jail-get-book-thrown-deserve-lindsey-graham-susan-collins-buck-trump-vow-persecute-jan-6ers/

Books, Hope, Future

Quotes about jail page 4

Quotes about jail
page 4