Imprisonment Quotes

• An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Motivational, Respect, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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  You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Wise, Peace

  Gandhi, Mahatma “Inspiring Thoughts”, Rajpal & Sons

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• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, History

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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• Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

  Richard Lovelace

  Wall, Angel, Iron

  "To Althea, from Prison" l. 25 (1649)

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• Imprisonment of the body is bitter; imprisonment of the mind is worse

  Thornton Wilder

  Mind, Body, Bitter

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Ides of March: A Novel”, p.15, Harper Collins

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• What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Compassion, Rose

  Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier, 24 Jan. 1786

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• Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.'

  James Keller

  Wall, Adversity, Cells

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• Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.

  Angela Davis

  Zoos, Jail, Prison Population

  Angela Davis: An Autobiography ch. 1 (1974)

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• You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea.
  You can kill a man, but not an idea.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Freedom

  Benazir Bhutto (1989). “Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography”, Simon & Schuster

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• Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Society, Today, Crime

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• Imprisonment is as irrevocable as death.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Prison, Irrevocable

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.308, e-artnow

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• The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Dying, Age

  'Measure for Measure' (1604) act 3, sc. 1, l. 114

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• Most people seem to assume that this dramatic surge in imprisonment was due to a corresponding surge in crime, particularly violent crime.

  Michelle Alexander

  People, Assuming, Dramatic

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• ... imprisonment itself, entailing loss of liberty, loss of citizenship, separation from family and loved ones, is punishment enough for most individuals, no matter how favorable the circumstances under which the time is passed.

  Mary B. Harris

  Loss, Punishment, Liberty

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• The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think.

  David Icke

  Being Yourself, Fear, Thinking

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• Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.

  Angela Davis

  Firsts, Problem, Prison

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• The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Practice, Democracy, Age

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.418, Coventry House Publishing

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• Living out one's faith is either no way to live or the only way to live; it's either imprisonment, or the only path to freedom. It offers happiness, or it frustrates the pursuit. There is no half-love, half-religion, half-worship, half-belief, half-truth. There is no kinda-sorta.

  Tarek Saab

  Catholic, Way, Path

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• When thee builds a prison, thee had better build with the thought ever in thy mind that thee and thy children may occupy the cells.

  Elizabeth Fry

  Children, Freedom, Cells

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• Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear; the sweetest freedom is an honest heart.

  John Ford

  Heart, Honest, Slave

  John Ford (1827). “Dramatic works of John Ford ...”, p.274

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• The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Fundamentals, Metaphor, Chains

  "Liberty" by Isaiah Berlin, edited by Henry Hardy, (Introduction), 2002.

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• A culture of dialogue is breaking down and giving way to a culture of threats and impunity, you can see the strategy already ... and what you have is essentially the threat of imprisonment in order to control people better.

  Sophal Ear

  Order, People, Giving

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• Strict justice would demand total confiscation of your property, personal imprisonment and fines.

  Zebulon Pike

  Justice, Growth, Demand

  Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Thomas Rees (1811). “Exploratory Travels Through the Western Territories of North America: Comprising a Voyage from St. Louis, on the Mississippi, to the Source of that River, and a Journey Through the Interior of Louisiana, and the North-eastern Provinces of New Spain ; Performed in the Years 1805, 1806, 1807, by Order of the Government of the United States”, p.145

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• I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.

  Fernando Flores

  Communication, Heart, Saws

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• I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be. We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment...Our imprisonment policies are counterproductive.

  William J. Clinton

  Marijuana, Thinking, Needs

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