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Prison Quotes

Browse 2429 quotes about Prison.

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Prison Quotes

“I gazed again at that sad, dark house- the place that had been a prison. Elain had said she missed it, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at the cottage. If she beheld not a prison but a shelter- a shelter from a world that had possessed so little good, but she tried to find it anyway, even if it had seemed foolish and useless to me. She had looked at that cottage with hope; I had looked at it with nothing but hatred. And I knew which one of us had been stronger.”

HouseStrengthPrisonSarah J MaasFeyreFeyre ArcheronShelterA Court Of Thorns And RosesElain ArcheronElain
Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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“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.”

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Book:The Stranger
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“Today my father still sits [in] prison. But what about all of us in our own prisons? For many of us, that's what we choose. There might not be metal bars or orange jumpsuits, but we keep ourselves locked in the prison of other people's expectations. Or we look across the street and put ourselves in the prison of wanting what those people over there have. We imprison ourselves in debt. We stay in our prisons because they're comfortable and don't challenge us.”

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Book:A Dream Too Big: The Story of an Improbable Journey from Compton to Oxford
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“Realizing the seriously ruthless, venomous habits and agendas of evil always instills a more fierce passion and longing for a closer God. Men, out of pride, may claim their own authorities over what constitutes good and evil; they may self-proclaim a keen knowledge of subjective morality through religion or science. But that is only if they are acknowledging the work of evil as a cartoon-like, petty little rain cloud in the sky that merely wants to dampen one's spirits. On the contrary, a man could be without a doubt lit with the strength, the peace, and the knowledge of the gods, his gods, but when or if the devils grow weary in unsuccessful attempts to torment him, they begin tormenting his loved ones, or, if not his loved ones, anyone who may attempt to grasp his philosophies. No matter how godly he may become, God is, in the end, his only hope and his only grace for the pressures built around him - it is left up to a higher authority and a more solid peace and a wider love to eclipse not just one's own evils but all evils for goodness to ultimately matter. If all men were gods, each being would dwell in a separate prison cell, hopeless, before finally imploding into nothingness.”

LovePhilosophyGodSpiritualScienceReligionFaithSpiritualityEvilHopePeaceSinGraceSecurityHumilityPrideMoralityEgoGoodnessDevilMercyPrisonPossessionGoodSatanAngelsHopelessnessBadDemonsApologeticsSpiritsBadnessSpirit Realm
Book:Killosophy
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“We are sneaking psychedelics back into our society through research like the MDMA research that's going on, through the research for the use of marijuana for pain, through research with the dying [with psilocybin], and ultimately we will do the same kind of stuff about alcoholism, about prison rehabilitation, so on. I mean, its obvious that psychedelics, properly used, have a behavior-change psychotherapeutic value. But from my point of view, that is all underusing the vehicle. The potential of the vehicle is sacramentally to take you out of the cultural constructs which you are part of a conspiracy in maintaining. And giving you a chance to experience once again your innocence.”

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Author:Ram Dass
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“The dead are immune from our prison of Time. The distance between the living and dead may be vast, but the space of Time the dead experience when they are reunited with their loved ones is only paper-thin.”

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Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up. And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away. It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.”

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Book:The World Without Us
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“All the best! You are a local legend in a Brisbane and Australia...you probably don't realise just how much...you will get released from that hell hole...you will come home...and discover your 'celebrity status'...which you will probably find nearly as hard to cope with...a different version of hell...anonymity to global fame...what a remarkable journey your life is. Keep safe...head down...this will pass.”

FamePrisonResilienceJournalistAustralianPeter Greste
Book:Prison post: Letters of support for Peter Greste
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“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.”

JusticePovertyRacismPrisonGreedPunishmentJailUnemploymentDesperationHomelessnessRetributionImprisonmentIncarcerationCriminal Justice SystemCrimesCycle Of Violence
Book:You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
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“[Denial] contorts our physical geography, as we build infrastructure—suburbs, highways, private schools, and prisons—that allow the professional middle-class to actively avoid sharing the lives of poor and working-class people.”

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Book:Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
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“And he dreaded prison more than anything, not because survival in the gourbis was any better, but because nothing would be more humiliating than being labeled a criminal. He had inherited a sense of honour that gave him – he, the poorest of the poor – the pride of a blind man and the humility of a prince.”

PovertyHumilityPrideHonorSurvivalPrisonAfghanistanHumiliation
Book:Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan
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“The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state. ...The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.”

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Book:I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau
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“Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”

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Author:Michel Foucault
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“You believe what you are and you are what you believe. This is a vicious or virtuous cycle in which we are all trapped. Our faiths and beliefs are like walls erected around us that provide us security but also act like a prison by blocking our view from the complete reality. We live in a make-believe world, oblivious to the reality that exists outside the four walls of our beliefs. The deep-rooted belief is called ‘faith’, which is responsible for many good things, but also for much of the evil in the world.”

BelieveEvilSecurityPrisonGoodVirtuousTrappedViciousErected
Book:Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth
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“Recently I interviewed a psychopath. This is always a humbling experience because it teaches over and over how much of human motivation and experience is outside my narrow range. Despite the psychopath's lack of conscience and lack of empathy for others, he is inevitably better at fooling people than any other type of offender. I suppose conscience just slows you down. A child convicted molester, this particular one made friends with a correctional officer who invited him to live in his home after he was released - despite the fact the officer had a nine-year-old daughter. The officer and his wife were so taken with the offender that, after the offender lived with them for a few months, they initiated adoption proceedings- adoption for a man almost their age. Of course, he was a child molester living in the same house as a child. Not surprisingly, he molested the daughter the entire time he lived there. [...] What these experiences taught have me is that even when people are warned of a previously founded case of even a conviction, they still routinely underestimate the pathology with which they are dealing.”

EmpathyConscienceLiesPrisonConvictionJailChild AbuseCharmingChild Sexual AbusePsychopathLiarCriminalPathologyGroomingGuardPedophilesTrickedPredatorsOffenderFoolingChild MolestersCon ManPrison Officer
Book:Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders
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“Wherever you go in the next catastrophé Be it sickroom, or prison, or cemet’ry Do not fear that your stay will be solit’ry Countless souls share your fate, you’ll have company!”

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Book:The Basement Trains: A 21st Century Poem
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“The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realize through that sin his true perfection.”

SoulFreedomViolencePersonalityAbusePrisonWildeOscarSoul Of A Man
Book:The Soul of Man under Socialism
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“Man is complete in himself. When they go into the world, the world will disagree with them. That is inevitable. The world hates Individualism. But that is not to trouble them. They are to be calm and self-centred. If a man takes their cloak, they are to give him their coat, just to show that material things are of no importance. If people abuse them, they are not to answer back. What does it signify? The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realise through that sin his true perfection.”

SoulFreedomViolencePersonalityAbusePrisonWildeOscarSoul Of A Man
Book:Der Sozialismus und die Seele des Menschen
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