Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee: Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  The Vanity of Human Wishes, l.155^60.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned† A man in a jail has moreroom, better food, and commonly bettercompany.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,16 Mar. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Presently I shall be introduced as 'this venerable old gentleman'and the axe will fall when they raise meto the degreeof 'grandoldman'.Thatmeansonourcontinentany onewithsnow-whitehair whohaskeptoutof jailtill eighty.

-Leacock, Stephen Butler
  My Remarkable Uncle,'Three Score and Ten'.

As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little differencewhether youare committedtoa farm or the county jail.

-Thoreau, Henry David
  Walden, or Life in theWoods,'Where I Lived, andWhat I Lived For'.