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Imprisonment Quotes

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Imprisonment Quotes

“A utopian system, when established by men, is likely to be synonymous with a dystopian depression. The only way for perfect peace by man is absolute control of all wrongs. Bully-cultures find this: with each and every mistake, another village idiot is shamed into nothingness and mindlessly shut down by the herd. This is a superficial peace made by force and by fear, one in which there is no freedom to breathe; and the reason it is impossible for man to maintain freedom and peace for everyone at the same time. Christ, on the other hand, transforms, instead of controls, by instilling his certain inner peace. This is the place where one realizes that only his holiness is and feels like true freedom, rather than like imprisonment, and, too, why Hell, I imagine, a magnified version of man's never-ending conflict between freedom and peace, would be the flesh's ultimate utopia - yet its ultimate regret.”

“At the beginning of my imprisonment, however, what I found most difficult was that I had the thoughts of a free man. For example, I was obsessed by a desire to be on a beach and to walk down to the sea. When I imagined the sound of those first little waves beneath my feet, the sensation of water flowing over my body and the feeling of freedom this brought me, it struck me how much the walls of my prison had closed in on me. But that just lasted a few months. Afterwards, I had only the thoughts of a prisoner. I looked forward to the daily walk I took around the courtyard or the visit from my lawyer. As for the rest of the time, I got used to it.”

“I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.”

“Throw the bums out" and "Drain the swamp" are popular political slogans. But it's not enough to move people around in a bureaucracy if you don't change the underlying values and let those values reshape tactics and procedures.”

“Some critics will counter that poverty is a choice made by those that are lazy or who lack the desire to change their loves for the better. I agree that poverty is a choice. But that choice is not made by the people who live under its oppressive effects. Rather, the choice is ours. It's the choice of government that represents our priorities and allocates our investments. Its a choice reinforced by the companies we patronize and the organizations we support.”

“(his) actions also underscore the limits of symbolic gestures toward social justice that we also often see in the world of philanthropy. We often pay homage to what needs to change and attempt half measures, but we rarely challenge our own complicity in the structural inequities.”

“The truth is that our individual efforts are important but insufficient. Our collective action -- the leaders we elect, the institutions administered in the name of the People, the other stanchions at the table --- offers an opportunity for bigger, longer-lasting action.”

“You’ve got a choice: ...you can just give in. You can give your jailers what they want. Switch off another light and in the ocean of darkness bow your head and cry. You can despair for your kids, and they can despair for you. But what does this choice give you? Have you any great new happiness now? What does your unhappiness give to your children? Why did you make this choice? Why did you walk into the trap of captivity?”

“I have nowhere to return to. It's like a state of imprisonment. The walls of the cell are the horizon of what I can see. Beyond them exists a world that's alien to me and doesn't belong to me. So for people like me the only thing possible is here and now, for every future is doubtful, everything yet to come is barely sketched and uncerain, like a mirage that can be destroyed by the slightest twitch of the air. That's what was going through my mind as we sat there in silence. It was better than a conversation.”

“Control and manipulation are not love; the outcome is a life of imprisonment ultimately leading to deep-rooted feelings of resentment.”

“Oggi penso talvolta che il vicino dell’Elefante poteva essere il futuro ufficiale della Gestapo che lo avrebbe torturato durante gli interrogatori. L’Elefante non era fatto per stare in prigione perché membro di una qualche organizzazione clandestina, non era fatto per sopportare la slogatura delle articolazioni e gli schiaffi né poi, con le gambe rotte dopo un tentativo di fuga nel suicidio, per capire con sollievo, in un resto di consapevolezza, che il suo povero corpo stava morendo. Ma il gioviale Elefante era nato per vivere in armonia e pace, tra gli scherzi bonari e le chiacchierate con gli amici davanti a un bicchiere di vino. Era liberale, scettico e restio alle tentazioni dell’eroismo. A mio parere, la sua morte e quella dei suoi simili grava sui Wandervögel nostri coetanei assai di più della morte di molti giovani fanatici.”

“Imprisonment gives off an unpleasant smell. Remnants of macerating evil thoughts, the effluvia of dirty ideas that have been hanging around too long, the bitter whiff of old regrets. Fresh air, by definition, never enters here. We breathe in our own breath in this bell jar, we share the atmosphere shot through with shards off brown chicken and dark intentions. Our clothes, our sheets and our skin end up saturated with these fumes, and there is no getting used to them. When we return from the exercise yard, and the outside air is halted at the turnstiles, the transition is always sudden, and the vague nausea is there to remind us that we live and breathe in a belly pushing us along in its laborious digestion, and then, when the time comes, it will expel us to free itself, not to give us back our freedom.”

“People never expose themselves totally to others. We always hold back parts of our true selves. Perhaps because we do not totally understand those parts ourselves. Or perhaps it is a survival instinct to hold something back. In that way we cannot be totally controlled, or imprisoned. But if we have computers connected to our brain, then those freedoms will disappear. Everything will be seen, and there will be no place for our stream of consciousness to hide.”

“The bad parts of the statute are not judicially severable, I consider, from the rest of its provisions that deal with imprisonment. Their roots are entangled too tenaciously in the surrounding soil for a clean extraction to be feasible. The conclusion to which I accordingly come is that we are left with no option but to declare those provisions as a whole to be constitutionally invalid on account of their objectionable overbreadth.”

“A wide assortment of children's rights advocates, lawyers, and mental health experts were watching closely when we asked the Court to declare life-without-parole sentences imposed on children unconstitutional. ....I told the Court that the United States is the only country in the world that imposes life imprisonment without parole sentences on children. I explained that condemning children violates international law, which bans these sentences for children. We showed the Court that these sentences are disproportionately imposed on children of color. We argued that the phenomenon of life sentences imposed on children is largely a result of harsh punishments that were created for career adult criminals and were were never intended for children--which made the imposition of such a sentence on juveniles like Terrance Graham and Joe Sullivan unusual. I also told the Court that to say to any child of thirteen that he is fit only to die in prison is cruel.”

“When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear”