Prison Walls Quotes

• 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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• I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
  All that we know who be in jail
  Is that the wall is strong;
  And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

  Oscar Wilde

  Witty, Strong, Wall

  The Ballad of Reading Gaol pt. 5, st. 1 (1898)

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• Cold walls do not a prison make, nor iron bands a bondsman.

  Scott Lynch

  Wall, Angel, Iron

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• We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wall, Landscape, Brilliant

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.7, e-artnow

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• We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.

  John Donne

  Mother, Wall, Jail

  John Donne, John Carey (2000). “John Donne: The Major Works”, p.280, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.

  John Gardner

  Dream, Wall, Spinning Around

  John Gardner (2010). “Grendel”, p.8, Vintage

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• To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Wall, Thinking, People

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• I have been asked what I mean by my word of honor. I will tell you. Place me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground - there is the possibility that in some way or another I may escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of the circle? No. Never! I'd die first!

  Karl G. Maeser

  Wall, Truth, Lying

  "The Circle of Honor" by David Brooksby, www.ldsbc.edu. June 05, 2012.

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• Jail didn't make me find God, He's always been there. They can lock me up, but my spirit and my love can never be confined to prison walls.

  Lil Wayne

  Wall, Jail, Locks

  "Remembering Lil Wayne's Letters From Riker's Island" by Hillary Crosley, www.mtv.com. November 3, 2010.

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• Prison walls are meant not only to keep convicts in, but to keep the would-be investigator out.

  Jessica Mitford

  Wall, Would Be, Prison

  Jessica Mitford (1973). “Kind and usual punishment: the prison business”, Vintage

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• Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.

  Rumi

  Wall, Sky, Prison

  Rumi (2015). “Selected Poems”, p.52, Penguin UK

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• Some time in our lives every man and woman of us, putting out our hands toward the stars, touch on either side our prison walls the immutable limitations of temperament

  Margaret Deland

  Stars, Wall, Men

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• Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers.

  Aeschylus

  Wall, Pain, Suffering

  Aeschylus (1961). “Prometheus Bound. The Suppliants. Seven Against Thebes. The Persians”, Penguin Classics

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• Even behind prison walls I can see the heavy clouds and the blue sky over the horizon

  Nelson Mandela

  Wall, Clouds, Blue

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.297, Pan Macmillan

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• Why should a man deliberately encircle his mind with needless prison walls. No man can reach highest excellence who puts limits to his own thought.

  Arthur Desmond

  Wall, Men, Mind

  "Rival Caesars". Book by Arthur Desmond, 1903.

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• The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.

  George W. Bush

  Wall, Heart, Law

  United Nations General Assembly Address, delivered 21 September 2004, New York, NY

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• Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past--oh so bright and clear!--oh so longed after!--because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall--or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable--more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Love, Wall, Holiday

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1852). “The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray”, p.125

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• To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.

  Jim Bakker

  Wall, Son, Hypnosis

  "The Best of Interviews With Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Messner". “CNN Larry King Weekend”, www.cnn.com. June 24, 2001.

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• Most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.

  Matthew Arnold

  Dream, Wall, Work

  Matthew Arnold (1994). “Dover Beach and Other Poems”, p.29, Courier Corporation

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• To revolt within society in order to make it a little better, to bring about certain reforms, is like the revolt of prisoners to improve their life within the prison walls; and such revolt is no revolt at all, it is just mutiny. Do you see the difference? Revolt within society is like the mutiny of prisoners who want better food, better treatment within the prison; but revolt born of understanding is an individual breaking away from society, and that is creative revolution.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Wall, Order, Differences

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• We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

  James Kavanaugh

  Beautiful, Wall, Giving

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• Your way begins at the other side.
  Become the sky.
  Take an axe to the prison wall.
  Escape.
  Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
  Do it now.

  Rumi

  Love, Inspirational, Change

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• I devoted my career to building an affinity with my fans who have supported me unflinchingly and no barbed wire fence or prison wall will stop that.

  Foxy Brown

  Wall, Careers, Wire

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• 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?

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Wall, Home, Men

  "On Fairy-Stories". Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews on March 08, 1939. "Essays presented to Charles Williams", 1947.

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• It is precisely because a child's feelings are so strong that they cannot be repressed without serious consequences. The stronger a prisoner is, the thicker the prison walls have to be, which impede or completely prevent later emotional growth.

  Alice Miller

  Strong, Children, Wall

  Alice Miller (2008). “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Third Edition”, p.33, Hachette UK

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