"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables...In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens...A very few-as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men-serve the state with their conscience also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it...

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison. The proper place today, the only place for a just man is also a prison."-Henry David Thoreau