Prisoner Quotes - Page 15

• Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs.

  Arundhati Roy

  Children, War, Fighting

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• We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Queens, Heart, Destiny

  Mary Wortley Montagu, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie Wharncliffe (1837). “The Letters and Works: In Three Volumes”, p.300

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• Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's.

  William Gurnall

  Nero, Christianity

  William Gurnall (1862). “The Christian in Complete Armour: Or, A Treatise on the Saints' War with the Devil ...”, p.1

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• Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel is to exist or not; in which, accordingly, the stunted, diseased and dull witted jailer is lord, and indicates the moment at which his distinguished prisoner shall die.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Independent, Long, Substance

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.422, Courier Corporation

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• He that wrongs a friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar ever condemned.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Friendship, Justice, Judging

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.1243, Delphi Classics

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• The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action.

  Albert Camus

  Freedom, Action, Individual

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.56, Vintage

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• In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Heart, Dark, Grieving

  1851 Twice- Told Tales,'The Haunted Mind'.

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• The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision. ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Hurt, Pain, Memories

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• Come Sleep! Oh Sleep, the certain knot of peace, the baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, the indifferent judge between the high and low.

  Philip Sidney

  Peace, Sleep, Insomnia

  'Astrophel and Stella' (1591) sonnet 39

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• There is only one rule by which to judge if God is near us or is far away - the rule that God's word is giving us today: everyone concerned for the hungry, the naked, the poor, for those who have vanished in police custody, for the tortured, for prisoners, for all flesh that suffers, has God close at hand. We have the ability, we have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth. We need only the will.

  John F. Kennedy

  Mean, Hands, Giving

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• The jury passing on the prisoner's life may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try.

  William Shakespeare

  Passing On, Two, Justice

  'Measure for Measure' (1604) act 2, sc. 1, l. 17

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• We are the prisoners of ideas.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ideas, Conflict

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It is what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street.

  Mark Helprin

  Song, Long, Political

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• I can mingle with the stars and throw a party on Mars
  I am a prisoner, locked up behind Xanax bars

  Lil Wayne

  Depression, Stars, Xanax

  Song: I Feel Like Dying, Album: THE DROUGHT IS OVER PT.2 (CARTER 3 SESSIONS MIXTAPE)

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• Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

  Laozi

  Not Caring, People, Tao Te Ching

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• If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to.

  John Selden

  Compassion, Judging, Would Be

  John Selden (1856). “The table-talk of John Selden, with a biogr. preface and notes by S.W. Singer”, p.50

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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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• ...by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it's too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?

  Robert Penn Warren

  Lying, Self, Justice

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• Samuel! Are you alright?" A vision of Samuel being brained by the falling bars rose up before Simon's eyes. Samuel's voice rose to a scream. "GO AWAY!" Simon looked sideways at Jace. "I think he means it." Jace shook his blond head in exasperation. "You had to make a crazy jail friend, didn't you? You couldn't just count ceiling tiles or tame a pet mouse like normal prisoners do?

  Cassandra Clare

  Crazy, Fall, Mean

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• Friday morning, Kylie, Miranda, and Della, each carting suitcases, walked the trail to meet up with their parents. They walked slowly, like condemned prisoners moving to their executions. “I’m going to be peeing on a drug test stick every hour,” Della muttered. Miranda sighed. “I’m going to screw up at my competition and my mom is going to give me up for adoption.” “I’m going to a ghost hunt,” Kylie added. Both girls looked at her. “Don’t ask.

  C.C. Hunter

  Girl, Mom, Friday

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• Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Animal, Numbers, Bird

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• I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Dream, Sorry, Sleep

  Viktor E. Frankl (2015). “Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition”, p.29, Beacon Press

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• Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Inspirational, Shining, Vision

  Jennifer Donnelly (2015). “Revolution”, p.27, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Confined on the ship, from which there is no escape, the madman is delivered to the river with its thousand arms, the sea with its thousand roads, to that great uncertainty external to everything. He is a prisoner in the midst of what is the freest, the openest of routes: bound fast at the infinite crossroads. He is the Passenger par excellence: that is, the prisoner of the passage. And the land he will come to is unknown—as is, once he disembarks, the land from which he comes. He has his truth and his homeland only in that fruitless expanse between two countries that cannot belong to him.

  Michel Foucault

  Country, Sea, Land

  Michel Foucault (2001). “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, p.9, Psychology Press

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• What a strange world it is, where prisoners are left their weapons and the written word is a mortal danger.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  World, Weapons, Strange

  Megan Whalen Turner (2010). “A Conspiracy of Kings”, Greenwillow

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