Prison Quotes - Page 26

• Thus, seamed with many scars Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! Thus the tale ended.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Stars, Warrior, Soul

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847). “The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Complete in One Volume”, p.38

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• Nearly a quarter of American men were in the Armed forces. The rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush.

  Bill Bryson

  School, Men, Quarters

  "The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid". Book by Bill Bryson, 2006.

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• The man who accused Richard Simmons of slapping him in an airport has dropped the assault charge. Dropped it! Upon hearing the news, Simmons sadly responded, "You mean I'm not going to prison?"

  Dennis Miller

  Mean, Men, Airports

  "Daily Ror-shocked: Is CNBC's Dennis Miller funny?" by Jeremy Cluchey, www.mediamatters.org. July 07, 2004.

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• The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that you can't win. Prison is lack of alternatives, and the telescopic predictability of the future is what drives you crazy.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Crazy, Winning, Space

  "Less Than One: Selected Essays". p. 28. Book by Joseph Brodsky, 1986.

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• The way people are treated in them [prisons] is very similar to gulags.

  Jerry Brown

  People, Way, Gulags

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• Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.

  Zoroaster

  Satisfaction, Dishonor, Harm

  "The Gathas". Book by Zoroaster. Translation by Dinshaw Jamshedji Irani, in K. D. Irani, Rabindranath Tagore, p.96, Yasna 53, 6, 1999.

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• Children of those who have been incarcerated are five times more likely to go to prison than children of parents who have never been incarcerated. The sins of the father visiting the child.

  Sam Brownback

  Children, Father, Parent

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• DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver. As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet, Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him, Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him; So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him, Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him, Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it, And finds at last he might as well have paid it.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Grieving, Glasses, Aquariums

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2379, Delphi Classics

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• It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.

  Alexander Berkman

  Hands, House, Degradation

  Alexander Berkman (1912). “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist”

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• Man's own form in space - his body - was a private prison; and that it was because of this imprisoning misery - because he was hungry and overworked and went to a horrid place called home late at night in the rain, and his bones ached and his head was heavy.

  Willem de Kooning

  Rain, Home, Night

  "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America". Book by William C. Seitz, p. 135, 1983.

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• Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

  David Hume

  Ocean, Gay, Thinking

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4068, Delphi Classics

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• It is easy for most of us to keep our hands from picking and stealing when picking and stealing plainly lead to prison diet and prison garments. But when silks and satins come of it, and with the silks and satins general respect, the net result of honesty does not seem to be so secure.

  Anthony Trollope

  Honesty, Hands, Doe

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Prime Minister”, p.103, Booklassic

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• Welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you chicken pox whooping cough smallpox malaria TB heart disease cancer and so on unemployment hunger and so on train wrecks bus accidents plane crashes on-the-job injuries earthquakes floods droughts and so on heartbreak alcoholism and so on nightsticks prisons doors and so on they're laying for you the atom bomb and so on welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you socialism communism and so on.

  Naz?m Hikmet

  Baby, Jobs, Cancer

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• No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority [of Christians] are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.

  John Calvin

  Christian, Body, Weakness

  John Calvin, Henry Van Andel (2004). “Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life”, p.22, Baker Books

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• In brief, we do more research on men in prison, men in the military, and men in general than we do on women for the same reason we do more research on rats than we do on humans.

  Warren Farrell

  Military, Men, Research

  Warren Farrell (1994). “The myth of male power: why men are the disposable sex”

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• In the case of a man and a woman [accused of commiting a crime together], both will often agree to the man taking the rap despite the man being more likely to receive a longer sentence and more likely to be raped in prison. If blacks were agreeing to do that for whites, the black community would be smart enough to call that 'learned subservience.'

  Warren Farrell

  Smart, Rap, Men

  "The Myth of Male Power". Book by Warren Farrell, 1993.

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• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving Up, War, Men

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• I think that physics is about escaping the prison of the received thoughts and searching for novel ways of thinking the world, about trying to clear a bit the misty lake of insubstantial dreams, which reflect reality like the lake reflects the mountains.

  Carlo Rovelli

  Dream, Reality, Thinking

  Carlo Rovelli (2007). “Quantum Gravity”, p.17, Cambridge University Press

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• Anarchism is opposed to states, armies, slavery, the wages system, the landlord system, prisons, monopoly capitalism, oligopoly capitalism, state capitalism, bureaucracy, meritocracy, theocracy, revolutionary governments, patriarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, protection rackets, intimidation by gangsters, and every other kind of coercive institution. In other words, anarchism opposes government in all its forms.

  Donald Rooum

  Army, Government, Wages

  "What Is Anarchism? An Introduction". Book by Donald Rooum, August 1, 1992.

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• I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers and their fathers, who have grieved and wept for them ..... Not only have I suffered during these long lonely wasted years. I am no less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell the birthright of the people to be free ....... Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.

  Nelson Mandela

  Mother, Lonely, Father

  Nelson Mandela (2003). “Nelson Mandela: from freedom to the future : tributes and speeches”, Jonathan Ball Publishers

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• Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn't have to put them in prisons?

  Fran Lebowitz

  Nice, School, Library

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• Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of "evidence against interest"; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.)

  Christopher Hitchens

  Jobs, Believe, Punishment

  "What Sharon Did" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. January 5, 2006.

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• A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind.

  Clarence Darrow

  Mind, Atheism, Body

  Clarence Darrow (1995). “Why I Am an Agnostic and Other Essays”

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• How many prison years in the years since Christ!

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Years, Atheism, Christ

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• The severest prosecutions have never been followed by revelations changing a divine law, obedience to which brought imprisonment or martyrdom. Though I go to prison, God will not change his law of celestial marriage.

  Lorenzo Snow

  Law, Obedience, Revelations

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