Solitary Confinement Quotes

• I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything.

  Nelson Mandela

  Dream, Play, Mind

  Nelson Mandela (2013). “Long Walk To Freedom”, p.264, Hachette UK

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• Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.

  W. L. George

  Cat, Pet, And Love

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• Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.

  Gary Chapman

  Punishment, Isolation, Cry

  Gary Chapman (2010). “The 5 Love Languages/Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married Set”, p.18, Moody Publishers

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• Isolation is devastating to the human psyche.

  Gary Chapman

  Isolation, Humans, Human Psyche

  Gary Chapman (2015). “The 5 Love Languages/The 5 Love Languages for Men Set”, p.22, Moody Publishers

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• People aren't wired to be alone. Even in the stressful population of prison, solitary confinement is still considered a cruel punishment.

  Richard Paul Evans

  Punishment, People, Population

  Richard Paul Evans (2012). “Miles to Go: The Second Journal of the Walk Series”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

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• Silence comes in two varieties: One that nourishes and comforts; another that chokes, smothers, and isolates. Solitary confinement is the worst kind of imprisonment we can inflict on fellow humans, and if you are forced to keep silent about some dark secret, you live in solitary confinement. Without the bridge of communication connecting you to other human beings, you can’t share your burdens, can’t receive comfort, can’t confirm that you still belong. Silence is the abyss that separates you from hope.

  Martha Beck

  Communication, Dark, Bridges

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• If you ever meet someone who cannot understand why solitary confinement is considered punishment, you have met a misanthrope.

  Florence King

  Punishment, Misanthrope, Mets

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• For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.

  Aldous Huxley

  Intuition, Language, Spite

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2000). “Complete Essays: 1920-1925”, Ivan R Dee

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• There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

  Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Lonely, Emotional, Differences

  Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.80, Sourcebooks, Inc.

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• The Holy Spirit showed me that when I put up walls to keep others out I also wall myself into solitary place of confinement.

  Joyce Meyer

  Wall, Spirit, Holy

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• A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an opening in the wall. One day an ant came into his cell. The man contemplated it in fascination as it crawled around the room. He held it in the palm of his hand the better to observe it, gave it a grain or two, and kept it under his tin cup at night. One day it suddenly struck him that it had taken him ten long years of solitary confinement to open his eyes to the loveliness of an ant.

  Anthony de Mello

  Wall, Taken, Eye

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• We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

  Tennessee Williams

  Lonely, Loneliness, Being Alone

  Orpheus Descending act 2, sc. 1 (1958)

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• During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.

  Tahir Shah

  Suicide, Work Out, Mind

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• Incessant company is as bad as solitary confinement.

  Virginia Woolf

  Incessant, Solitary, Confinement

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.341, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is about as much educational benefit to be gained in studying dolphins in captivity as there would be studying mankind by only observing prisoners held in solitary confinement.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Educational, Dolphins, Captivity

  "Marvel at wild animals -- from a distance" by Chris Palmer, www.cnn.com. February 26, 2010.

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• Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Prison, Solitary

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• Most of them were murderers. But when I went there to talk, they were the nicest people. I did a reading. I said, "Thank you," and then they said to me, "Could you talk some more?" And I said, "Why?" and they answered, "Most of us are in solitary confinement, so the moment you finish talking, they take us back to our cells. We like hanging out here together."

  Etgar Keret

  Reading, Cells, Talking

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

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• It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Motivational, Mirrors, Punishment

  Lois McMaster Bujold (1994). “Mirror Dance”, p.129, Baen Books

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• It's strange when they near your cell. You lose all your strength, and you are like this. You lose all your strength as if a rope is dragging it out of you. Then the footsteps stop in front of another solitary confinement cell, and when you hear the sound of the key turning you feel relieved.

  Sakae Menda

  Cells, Keys, Sound

  "Film: Harsh Justice". www.journeyman.tv. March 29, 2004.

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• External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!

  Jules Verne

  Wall, Exercise, Men

  Jules Verne, Jules VERNE (2016). “Journey to the Interior of the Earth”, p.150, Jules Verne

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• I have spent 11 horrific years in solitary confinement in a 6-square-meter dungeon three floors underground without sunlight or fresh air. But I endured my hardships because I was merely living my convictions.

  Samir Geagea

  Squares, Air, Years

  "Samir, Sitrida Geagea Airborne for Month-Long Recuperation Abroad". Lebanese Forces.com, July 26, 2005.

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• The artist's task is to become a successful eccentric, a strange but wise duck able to venture out of solitary confinement and mingle among society.

  Eric Maisel

  Wise, Successful, Artist

  Eric Maisel (1996). “Affirmations for Artists”, Tarcher

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• The Truth is in the prolouge. Death to the romantic fool., the expert in solitary confinement.

  Pablo Neruda

  Fool, Experts, Truth Is

  Pablo Neruda, “Still Another Day: XVII/Men”

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• In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.

  Aldous Huxley

  Inspirational, Strong, Soul And Body

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2000). “Complete Essays: 1920-1925”, Ivan R Dee

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• The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

  Karl Kraus

  World, Prison, Solitary

  "Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths". Book by Karl Kraus, translated by Harry Zohn, 1986.

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