If we have violated any law, it was not done intentionally. We have injured no man's reputation, character, person, or property.We were meeting together to preserve ourselves, our wives, and our children from utter degradation and starvation.

-Loveless, George
  Statement to the Dorchester Assizes, Mar, on behalf of the Tolpuddle martyrs.

The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
Quoted by Lloyd Osbourne in'The Death of Stevenson', preface toTusitala edition of Weir of Hermiston (published1924).