This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its justice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
Conscience | Individual | Justice | Law | Reality | Respect | Respect |
Pete Stark, fully Fortney H. "Pete" Stark, Jr.
Throw a few chairmen of the board in jail for polluting the air and water, and you’ll see pollution disappear quite rapidly… You would probably also probably see some pretty drastic prison reforms.
Prison |
To establish the principles of the Declaration of Independence, we are going to need to go outside the law, to stop obeying the laws that demand killing or that allocate wealth the way it has been done, or that put people in jail for petty technical offense and keep other people out of jail for enormous crimes.
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.
Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Cost | Day | Disgrace | Enemy | Equality | Fighting | Freedom | Murder | Nothing | People | Thought | War | Will | World | Murder | Thought |
Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
If you are ever going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don't ever lie.
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived wholly in vain, he remarked. If my record were closed to-night I could still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my presence.
Stephen Leacock, fully Stephen Butler Leacock
A half-truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
See what will happen if you don’t stop biting your fingernails?
Aid | Government | Humanity | Man | Politics | Reason | Truth | Will | Government |
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests - and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without pretense at apology, without the homage of a tear.
Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden
Imagine a nineteenth-century Jane Fonda visiting the Oglala Sioux in the Black Hills before the battle at Little Big Horn. Imagine her examining Crazy Horse's arrows or climbing upon Sitting Bull's horse. Such behavior by a well-known actress no doubt would have infuriated Gen. George Armstrong Custer, but what would the rest of us feel today
Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden
There is a power to the street that's part of the democratic process when all else has failed,
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
With faith and hope and courage we hold our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the march from Capitalism to Socialism, from Slavery to Freedom, from Barbarism to Civilization.
Courage | Hell | History | Labor | Men | Need | Spirit | Struggle | Time | Will | World | Writing |