Quotessence
Home / Topics / Prison Quotes

Prison Quotes

Browse 2429 quotes about Prison.

Related topics

PeopleIfsMenYearsThinkingWorldCrimeKnowsPrisonerWantWayJailWallLongMindDoeStatesHas BeensHumansWellsLawSchoolShouldSoulCountryGovernmentPunishmentGivingKindCriminalsLooksMadeNeedsCellsFirstsMayHomeFeelsLittlesWarHouseMeanBarsBelieveMightChildrenDrugSaidBreakBlackDoorsPersonsWritingI CanTryingWould BeHeartPastPoliceTwoBodyEndsInmatesLibertyStillsPoliticalRunningSelfWholeRealReasonCommunityDifferentFoundHandsRoomsSentencesTodayUsedBookDonePoorPrison WallsSufferingAmericaJusticeSecurityThreeChainsIdeasJobsPresidentProblemShowsSometimesTermYoungEyeHardHelpingmore

Prison Quotes

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

InspirationalHumansKindPersonsPhilosophyWholeFeelingsSpiritualDesireHumanityUniverseNatureHuman BeingsSpaceConsciousnessCompassionBeautyHumilityCreaturesAll ThingsTasksEmbracePrisonMental HealthAffectionCirclesDelusionVeganAnimal RightsEcologyTime And SpaceLiving ThingsVegetarianismInsperationalRelativitySelf ConsciousnessSelf CompassionLiving CreaturesThoughts And FeelingsNature BeautyHuman ConsciousnessHuman ThoughtSave Mother EarthHumans And AnimalsHuman ConnectionHuman ActionsSpace TimeAnimal CompassionSpiritual NatureNature And BeautyCommon HumanityOne With NatureAnimals In NatureKindness To AnimalsLimited TimeNature And AnimalsHuman CompassionModern PhysicsPersonal FeelingsThinking GodPersonal DesireLiving RightPersonal ConnectionGod NatureLiving RealityNature RelatedParts Of A WholeKind ThoughtsKind PersonCaring And CompassionEarth Community
Author:Albert Einstein
Create image

“In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History... There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.... Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real; life, plenitude, light.”

ThinkingWayNeedsDoeRealPhilosophyLightLife IsHumanityCultureLostHeavenFailingCivilizationThousandMiracleAbsolutesPrisonEverydayNostalgiaReal LifeIdeologyParadiseManifestEveryday LifeAlienationPlenitude
Author:Eugene Ionesco
Create image

“I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

IfsThinkingMenShouldTryingStoriesHomeUsedAcceptingWallFindingsFunctionPrisonPityToneFairyTopicsScornEscapismScornedFairy StoriesJailerPrison WallsFantasy StoriesFiction Stories
Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
Create image

“Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?”

IfsKnowsCultureVoiceHeardSeaCrySeriousArmsLaughterCriticismPrisonPreparedComplainingBackgroundsToneWhat IfGatesDiscourseAnguishAmusementAntidoteGiggleDrained
Author:Neil Postman
Create image

“Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

YearsMindMadeSaidSoulEarthBitsClassHonorElementsYears AgoPrisonCriminalsKinshipCommonalityLower ClassYour Honor
Author:Eugene V. Debs
Create image

“A good social system is not to be secured by making people unselfish, but, by making their own vital impulses fit in with other peoples. This is feasible. Those who have produced stoic philosophies have all had enough to eat and drink. I feel I shall find the truth on my deathbed and be surrounded by people too stupid to understand—fussing about medicines instead of searching for wisdom. I hate being all tidy like a book in a library where nobody reads – prison is horribly like that.”

PeopleFeelsBookEnoughPhilosophyHateSocialStupidFitDrinkI HateMedicinePrisonLibraryImpulseHad EnoughSecuredUnselfishDeathbedTidyStoicSocial SystemsFussing
Author:Bertrand Russell
Create image

“Even at the time—twenty years old—I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else. (Guy de Maupassant)”

YearsSaidGuyFightingBornHoursPleasureParticularBrokenTenOfficeTwentiesPrisonHungrySatDaringGrandfatherDesksVowMy GrandfatherTrampsFighting For LoveOffice Desk
Author:Isaac Babel
Create image

“It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in Nature and in the world of though. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”

WorldWantFeelsHumansLooksWholeFeelingsDesireOrderUniverseIndividualDifficultExistenceAimPrisonSignificantConceptionMarvelousNothingnessCorrespondingSublimity
Author:Albert Einstein
Create image

“During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.”

YearsSaidI CanFacesCoursesNamesBehindsHeardMonthsColdTerribleOne DayStandingEarsBluePrisonLipsTerrorSpokesAffectedSeventeenNumbnessQueuesLeningrad
Author:Anna Akhmatova
Create image

“That prison," I said with heartfelt sincerity, "Was absolutely the most awful thing that has happened to me in my entire life." I could tell by the way he looked at me that he thought my life had been filled with one awful thing after another.”

WaySaidHappenedFilledPrisonAwfulSincerityHeartfelt
Book:World of the Queen's Thief Collection: The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings, Thick as Thieves
Create image

“Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.”

MenHumansHeartStillsNightVoiceHealingTeachPoetPraisePrisonBottomDesertCurseRejoiceVersesDistressFountainFarmingFree ManRaptureVineyards
Author:W. H. Auden
Create image

“The curse of mortality. You spend the first portion of your life learning, growing stronger, more capable. And then, through no fault of your own, your body begins to fail. You regress. Strong limbs become feeble, keen senses grow dull, hardy constitutions deteriorate. Beauty withers. Organs quit. You remember yourself in your prime, and wonder where that person went. As your wisdom and experience are peaking, your traitorous body becomes a prison.”

FirstsPersonsBodyRememberStrongGrowsWonderGrowingFailingCapableConstitutionStrongerPrisonAgingFaultsYour BodyQuittingSensesCurseDullMortalityPrimePortionsOrgansLimbsHardyLife LearningWisdom And ExperiencePeakingGrowing Stronger
Book:Fablehaven
Create image

“Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.”

EndsLeftConversationPrisonPursuitUselessGet AwayWorthlessEscapingMadhouses
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)
Create image