Quotes about prison
page 11

Peter Kropotkin photo

“Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action, — men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles, — intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed, — these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

The Spirit of Revolt (1880)
Context: When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head.
Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action, — men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles, — intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed, — these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights.

Philip G. Zimbardo photo

“Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

"The Banality of Heroism" in The Greater Good (Fall/Winter 2006/2007) http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_banality_of_heroism/, co-written with Zeno Franco
Context: Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing. At Abu Ghraib, one photo shows two soldiers smiling before a pyramid of naked prisoners while a dozen other soldiers stand around watching passively. If you observe such abuses and don’t say, “This is wrong! Stop it!” you give tacit approval to continue. You are part of the silent majority that makes evil deeds more acceptable.

Robert H. Jackson photo

“If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945)
Quotes from the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946)

Emma Goldman photo

“I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.”

This incident was the source of a statement commonly attributed to Goldman that occurs in several variants:
If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming.
Living My Life (1931)
Context: At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. (p. 56)

Aleister Crowley photo

“I embrace hardship and privation with ecstatic delight; I want everything the world holds; I would go to prison or to the scaffold for the sake of the experience. I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 54.
Context: I embrace hardship and privation with ecstatic delight; I want everything the world holds; I would go to prison or to the scaffold for the sake of the experience. I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck. I grow delirious to contemplate the delicious horrors that are certain to happen to me. This is the keynote of my life, the untrammeled delight in every possibility of existence, potential or actual.

Susan Sontag photo

“The charges against most of the people detained in the prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan being nonexistent — the Red Cross reports that 70 to 90 percent of those being held seem to have committed no crime other than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in some sweep of "suspects" — the principal justification for holding them is "interrogation." Interrogation about what? About anything.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Regarding the Torture of Others (2004)
Context: The charges against most of the people detained in the prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan being nonexistent — the Red Cross reports that 70 to 90 percent of those being held seem to have committed no crime other than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in some sweep of "suspects" — the principal justification for holding them is "interrogation." Interrogation about what? About anything. Whatever the detainee might know. If interrogation is the point of detaining prisoners indefinitely, then physical coercion, humiliation and torture become inevitable.
Remember: we are not talking about that rarest of cases, the "ticking time bomb" situation, which is sometimes used as a limiting case that justifies torture of prisoners who have knowledge of an imminent attack. This is general or nonspecific information-gathering, authorized by American military and civilian administrators to learn more of a shadowy empire of evildoers about whom Americans know virtually nothing, in countries about which they are singularly ignorant: in principle, any information at all might be useful. An interrogation that produced no information (whatever information might consist of) would count as a failure.

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

"Returning Home" http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2877&Itemid=0, Shambhala Sun (March 2006)
Context: Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race. Your true home is not an abstract idea. It is something you can touch and live in every moment. With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of your mind and body in the present moment. No one can take it away from you. Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.

“In prison, I found out who God really was, who He is, and that too took some time. I had seen God as an arbitrary rule maker. He made His rules the same way my parents did. The reason was "Because I said so!"”

Sean Sellers (1969–1999) American murderer

But that was a false image of God. The way Anton LaVey saw God also affected his view of Satan.
Open Letter To Satanists

Nelson Mandela photo

“A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Context: It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

Buckminster Fuller photo

“The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear.
This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Cosmography (1992)
Context: The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear.
This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation. Caught up in a plethora of conditioned reflexes and driven by the human ego, both warden and prisoner attempt meagerly to compete with God. All are intractably skeptical of what they do not understand.
We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.

James A. Garfield photo

“Our comrades escaping from the starvation of prison, fleeing to our lines by the light of the North star, never feared to enter the black man's cabin and ask for bread”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)
Context: And it did gentle the condition and elevate the heart of every worthy soldier who fought for the Union, [applause, ] and he shall be our brother forevermore. Another thing we will remember: we will remember our allies who fought with us. Soon after the great struggle began, we looked behind the army of white rebels, and saw 4,000,000 of black people condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies; and we found that the hearts of these 4,000,000 were God-inspired with the spirit of Liberty, and that they were all our friends. [Applause. ] We have seen the white men betray the flag and fight to kill the Union; but in all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor in a black skin. [Great cheers. ] Our comrades escaping from the starvation of prison, fleeing to our lines by the light of the North star, never feared to enter the black man's cabin and ask for bread. ["Good, good," "That's so," and loud cheers. ] In all that period of suffering and danger, no Union soldier was ever betrayed by a black man or woman. [Applause. ] And now that we have made them free, so long as we live we will stand by these black allies. [Renewed applause. ] We will stand by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon every man, black or white, throughout the Union. [Cheers. ] Fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is the beneficence of eternal justice, and by it we will stand forever. [Great applause. ] A poet has said that in individual life we rise, "On stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things," and the Republic rises on the glorious achievements of its dead and living heroes to a higher and nobler national life. [Applause. ] We must stand guard over our past as soldiers, and over our country as the common heritage of all. [Applause. ]

Anthony Burgess photo

“Prison religion'…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

“Whorf's brilliant analysis… seemed to support the view that man is a prisoner of his language.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Word Play (1974)
Context: About 1932 one of Sapir's students at Yale, Benjamin Lee Whorf drew on Sapir's ideas and began an intensive study of the language of the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Whorf's brilliant analysis... seemed to support the view that man is a prisoner of his language. Whorf emphasized grammar—rather than vocabulary, which had previously intrigued scholars—as an indicator of the way a language can direct a speaker into certain habits of thought.

Gideon Levy photo

“Political prisoners, detention without trial and unlimited imprisonment define tyranny.”

Gideon Levy (1953) Israeli journalist

In a Democracy, Palestinian Lawmaker Khalida Jarrar Would Be Free (June 21, 2018)
Context: Jarrar could end up spending the rest of her life in prison; there is no legal impediment to this since all the pathetic arguments used to justify her continued detention could be deemed valid indefinitely. If she’s dangerous today, she’s dangerous forever. Political prisoners, detention without trial and unlimited imprisonment define tyranny.

Robert Anton Wilson photo

“Reich was not only thrown in prison, but they chopped up all the scientific equipment in his laboratory with axes and burned all of his books in an incinerator.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

"Robert Anton Wilson on Wilhelm Reich" (March 1995)
Context: He {Wilhelm Reich} had a great capacity to arouse irrational hatred obviously, and that's because his ideas were radical in the most extreme sense of the word "radical." His ideas have something to offend everybody, and he ended up becoming the only heretic in American history whose books were literally burned by the government.
Timothy Leary spent five years in prison for unorthodox scientific ideas. Ezra Pound spent 13 years in a nuthouse for unorthodox political and economic ideas. Their books were not burned.
Reich was not only thrown in prison, but they chopped up all the scientific equipment in his laboratory with axes and burned all of his books in an incinerator. Now that interests me as a civil liberties issue.
When I started studying Reich's works, I went through a period of enthusiasm, followed by a period of skepticism, followed by a period of just continued interest, but I think a lot of his ideas probably were sound. A lot probably were unsound. And, I'm not a Reichian in the sense of somebody who thinks he was the greatest scientist who ever lived and discovered the basic secrets of psychology, physics and everything else, all in one lifetime. But I think he has enough sound ideas that his unpopular ideas deserve further investigation.

Martha Washington photo

“I live a very dull life here and know nothing that passes in the town — I never go to any public place; indeed I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else.”

Martha Washington (1731–1802) First Lady of the United States

Letter to her niece Fanny Basset Washington (October 1789), as quoted in Memorials of Washington and of Mary, his Mother, and Martha, his Wife (1887) edited by James Walter, Robert Cary, p. 267
Context: I live a very dull life here and know nothing that passes in the town — I never go to any public place; indeed I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else. There are certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from; and as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate, and stay at home a great deal.

Bill Downs photo

“The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi tommy guns.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story (1943)
Context: At the wide shallow ravine, their valuable and part of their clothing were removed and heaped into a big pile. Then groups of these people were led into a neighboring deep ravine where they were machine-gunned. When bodies covered the ground in more or less of a layer, SS men scraped sand down from the ravine walls to cover them. Then the shooting would continue. The Nazis, we were told, worked three days doing the job. However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis between Aug. 19 and Sept. 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines. On Aug. 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi tommy guns.

Gideon Levy photo

“There can be no political prisoners in a democracy, nor detention without trial in a state of law.”

Gideon Levy (1953) Israeli journalist

In a Democracy, Palestinian Lawmaker Khalida Jarrar Would Be Free (June 21, 2018)
Context: The continued detention of Palestinian parliament member in Israel. Her imprisonment is an inseparable part of the Israeli regime and it is the face of Israeli democracy, no less than its free elections (for some of its subjects) or the pride parades that wind through its streets. Jarrar is the Israeli regime no less than the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty. Jarrar is Israeli democracy without makeup and adornments. The lack of interest in her fate is also characteristic of the regime. A legislator in prison through no fault of her own is a political prisoner in every way, and political prisoners defined by the regime. There can be no political prisoners in a democracy, nor detention without trial in a state of law. Thus Jarrar’s imprisonment is not only a black stain on the Israeli regime; it’s an inseparable part of it.

Abraham Pais photo

“I was lucky because the same week that I went to prison the Americans crossed the Rhine and cut off the northern part of Holland, so there was no longer any possibility of being shipped out to a concentration camp.”

Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist

Source: To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue (2000), p. 51
Context: I was lucky because the same week that I went to prison the Americans crossed the Rhine and cut off the northern part of Holland, so there was no longer any possibility of being shipped out to a concentration camp. The rail lines were cut. So I was in prison in Amsterdam during the very last days of the war. We were sent to the men's prison and the girls were sent to a women's prison in a different place.

Ann Coulter photo

“I don’t care if she knew about this. She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2013

Neil Strauss photo

“Love is a velvet prison.”

Neil Strauss (1973) American writer

Rules of the Game: The Style Diaries (2007)

Elie Wiesel photo

“As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
Context: As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Hofnung un Shrek, 1906. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 279.
Context: I fear you. As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison. And you will exterminate the creator of new worlds,—the free human will, and stop up the purest well of human happiness—the power of the one to face thousands, to stand up to peoples and generations.

Alvin C. York photo

“There were considerably over 100 prisoners now. It was a problem to get them back safely to our own lines. There were so many of them, there was danger of our own artillery mistaking us for a German counterattack and opening upon us.”

Alvin C. York (1887–1964) United States Army Medal of Honor recipient

Account of 8 October 1918.
Diary of Alvin York
Context: There were considerably over 100 prisoners now. It was a problem to get them back safely to our own lines. There were so many of them, there was danger of our own artillery mistaking us for a German counterattack and opening upon us. I sure was relieved when we ran into the relief squads that had been sent forward through the brush to help us.

Albert Camus photo

“But the prisoner does not speak.”

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)
Context: Alyosha can, in fact, treat Ivan with compassion as a "real simpleton." The latter only made aa attempt at self-control and failed. Others will appear, with more serious intentions, who, on the basis of the same despairing nihilism, will insist on ruling the world. These are the Grand Inquisitors who imprison Christ and come to tell Him that His method is not correct, that universal happiness cannot be achieved by the immediate freedom of choosing between good and evil, but by the domination and unification of the world. The first step is to conquer and rule. The kingdom of heaven will, in fact, appear on earth, but it will be ruled over by men — a mere handful to begin with, who will be the Cassars, because they were the first to understand — and later, with time, by all men. The unity of all creation will be achieved by every possible means, since everything is permitted. The Grand Inquisitor is old and tired, for the knowledge he possesses is bitter. He knows that men are lazy rather than cowardly and that they prefer peace and death to the liberty of discerning between good and evil. He has pity, a cold pity, for the silent prisoner whom history endlessly deceives. He urges him to speak, to recognize his misdeeds, and, in one sense, to approve the actions of the Inquisitors and of the Caesars. But the prisoner does not speak.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Count Egmont’s Soliloquy In Prison.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Act 5, Scene 2
Translations, From the German

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher photo

“If you rub it in both at home and abroad that you are ready for instant war…..and intend to be first in and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you.”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

At the 1st Hague Peace Conference, May 1899
Quoted in Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pEf98V-dbwoC&pg=PA431&lpg=PA431&dq=jacky+fisher+moderation+in+war+imbecility&source=bl&ots=UsLopgdefe&sig=FA9GN8mdf4T3qRbja8zCWvNWlzk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9quGN6abTAhWCJMAKHds2C2cQ6AEISTAH#v=onepage&q&f=false(1991), Robert K. Massie, p. 431.
This originated from the notes of the journalist W.T. Stead, quoted in full in Fisher of Kilverstone (1973), Ruddock F. Mackay, Clarendon Press, p. 223.
Context: The humanising of war? You might as well talk about the humanizing of Hell!...... The essence of war is violence! Moderation in war is imbecility!..... I am not for war, I am for peace! That is why I am for a supreme Navy....... The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for peace in the world...... If you rub it in both at home and abroad that you are ready for instant war..... and intend to be first in and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you.

Mike Tyson photo
Mikhail Bulgakov photo
Alvin C. York photo
Richard Montoya photo
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo

“Hindutva was a political argument made in a poetic register. It was an argument with and against an unnamed Gandhi at an opportune moment when he seemed finished with politics. Hindutva was also a political cry from behind prison walls, reminding the larger world outside that even if Gandhi was no longer on the political scene, Savarkar was back. He was still a leader, a politician capable of pulling together a nationalist community. But unlike Gandhi, he was offering a sense of Hindu-ness that could be the basis for a more genuine and, in the end, more effective nationalism than that of the Mahatma. The startling change for its time was Savarkar’s assertion that it was not religion that made Hindus Hindu. If Gandhi had officiated at the marriage of religion and politics, and Khilafat leaders were using the symbols of religion to forge a community, Savarkar argued that name and place were what bound the Hindu community, not religion . . . The fundamental (negative) contribution of Hindutva was to install a new term for nationalist discourse, one that was both modern and secular, if open to a secular understanding of religious identity. In place of religion qua religion, he secularized a plethora of Hindu religious leaders. In so doing, he did not create a sterilely secular nationalism. He did quite the opposite. He enchanted a secular nationalism by placing a mythic community into a magical land .”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Janaki Bakhle quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

Abimael Guzmán photo
Franz Bardon photo
Alvin C. York photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“The soldiers on the Eastern Front fight far better. The reason they give in so easily in the West is simply the fault of that stupid Geneva convention which promises them good treatment as prisoners. We must scrap the idiotic thing.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Remarks to General Guderian (March 1945), quoted in Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (1952), p. 427
1940s

Charles Stross photo
Michelle Alexander photo

“For children, the era of mass incarceration has meant a tremendous amount of family separation, broken homes, poverty, and a far, far greater level of hopelessness as they see so many of their loved ones cycling in and out of prison. Children who have incarcerated parents are far more likely themselves to be incarcerated…”

Michelle Alexander (1967) American lawyer, civil rights activist and writer

On the effect mass incarceration has on children in “Schools and the New Jim Crow: An Interview With Michelle Alexander” https://truthout.org/articles/schools-and-the-new-jim-crow-an-interview-with-michelle-alexander/ in Truthout (2013 Jun 4)

Don Cherry photo

“The Flames and Canucks, this one was the toughest series of all folks. No prisoners were taken in this one. Whoa! Are they hittin’? And they’re hittin’ to hurt, I’ll tell ya. Watch these beauty hits. You better keep your head up in this series I’ll tell ya!”

Don Cherry (1934) ice hockey coach, television commentator

In the "Flames-Canucks" segment (profiling the 1994 Western Conference Quarterfinal Series between the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks) of the <i>Rock'Em Sock'Em Six</i> hockey highlights video.

Hillary Clinton photo
Albert Einstein photo
Eldridge Cleaver photo
Eldridge Cleaver photo
Angela Davis photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“Brazilian prisons are wonderful places … they’re places for people to pay for their sins, not live the life of Reilly in a spa. Those who rape, kidnap and kill are going there to suffer, not attend a holiday camp.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In February 2014. Who is Jair Bolsonaro? Brazil's far-right president in his own words https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-tropical-trump-who-hankers-for-days-of-dictatorship. The Guardian (29 October 2018).

Aimé Césaire photo

“My mouth shall be the mouth of those calamities that have no mouth, my voice the freedom of those who break down in the prison holes of despair.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (1939), p. 13

Sheila Jackson Lee photo
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez photo
Edmund Burke photo
Fidel Castro photo
Fidel Castro photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Robert Mugabe photo

“What was the most important thing for (Mandela) was his release from prison and nothing else. He cherished that freedom more than anything else and forgot why he was put in jail.”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

As quoted in "WATCH: 'Fascinating' video of Mugabe talking 'non-racialism' like Mandela goes viral on social media" https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/watch-fascinating-video-of-mugabe-talking-non-racialism-like-mandela-20170916 (16 September 2017), News24, South Africa
2010s

Johann Most photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.
King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Nicolae Ceaușescu photo

“Gheorghiu-Dej put more people in prison, but he had a motive. Ceausescu had no motive to do what he did. Things were worse under the last ten years of Ceausescu. It was terrible what he did.”

Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989) General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party

Serban Ghica, as quoted in John Sweeney, The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu (Hutchinson, 1991), p. 75
About Ceaușescu

Suzanne Collins photo
Michael Howard photo

“Let us be clear. Prison works.”

Michael Howard (1941) British politician

It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.
Colin Brown, "Howard seeks to placate 'angry majority'", The Independent, October 7, 1993
Speech to the Conservative Party conference, October 6, 1993

Pedro Albizu Campos photo
William March photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Emily Brontë photo
Thurgood Marshall photo
James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo

“Sending Robert Downey, Jr. to prison for drug use makes no more sense than locking up Betty Ford for using alcohol. Now if it's Darryl Strawberry and he uses drugs while driving, that's a different matter; he should do time.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

As quote in Coast Magazine, Jim Wood, “Interview—Judge James P. Gray—The Newport Beach resident talks about America's War on Drugs” (June 2001) Vol.10 No. 7

James Baldwin photo

“We don't need to build more prisons! We must build more graveyards!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Não precisamos construir mais cadeias! Temos de construir mais cemitérios!
Original: (pt) Source: [9 December 2009, Morre Luiz Carlos Alborghetti, dono do bordão 'bandido bom é bandido morto', https://extra.globo.com/tv-e-lazer/morre-luiz-carlos-alborghetti-dono-do-bordao-bandido-bom-bandido-morto-209786.html, Portuguese, Extra, Editora Globo S/A, 31 March 2019]

Benny Tai photo

“If the struggle for democracy is a long battle, what is a few months or years in prison if I can gain more resilience for the future.”

Benny Tai (1964) Hong Kong activist and writer

"There will be darker times ahead for Hong Kong but the sun will rise again" (April 19, 2019)

Victor Hugo photo
Evagrius Ponticus photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo

“How I despise the liberal gang that has captured the Chamber! They are prisoners of their own verbose unrealism, and are setting the country back further from year to year.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, quoted in Walter Görlitz, History of the German General Staff, 1657-1945 https://ia801907.us.archive.org/34/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.285159/2015.285159.The-_text.pdf

Wendell Berry photo
William Godwin photo

“Ministers and favorites are a sort of people who have a state prisoner in their custody, the whole management of whose understanding and actions they can easily engross.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book V, Ch. 5
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Benjamin Creme photo
Ho Chi Minh photo
J.B. Priestley photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Petr Chelčický photo
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Crime and madness have some similarity. Seeing the prisoners of the Conciergerie in the courtyard, or seeing the mad in the garden of a nursing home, it's the same thing. Both walk around, avoiding each other, glancing at each other at least singularly, atrociously, according to their thoughts of the moment, never cheerful or serious; because they know each other or they fear each other. The expectation of a condemnation, remorse, anxieties give walkers in the courtyard a worried and a haggard look of madmen. Consummate criminals alone have an assurance which resembles the tranquility of an honest life, the sincerity of a pure conscience.”

et Misères des courtisanes (The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans) (1837-1847), part IV. La dernière Incarnation de Vautrin (The Last Incarnation of Vautrin) https://books.google.ca/books?id=ajtOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Splendeurs+et+Mis%C3%A8res+des+Coutisanes+Sc%C3%A8nes+de+la+Vie+parisienne&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq69XJuJTvAhXrMlkFHcxvDVgQ6AEwCHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&f=falseSplendeurs, "Le Préau de la Conciergerie" ("The Courtyard of the Conciergerie") (chapter title).
Original: (fr) Le crime et la folie ont quelque similitude. Voir les prisonniers de la Conciergerie au préau, ou voir des fous dans le jardin d'une maison de santé, c'est une même chose. Les uns et les autres se promènent en s'évitant, se jettent des regards au moins siguliers, atroces, selon leurs pensées du moment, jamais gais ni sérieux ; car ils se connaissent ou ils se craignent. L'attente d'une condamnation, les remords, les anxiétés donnent aux promeneurs du préau l'air inquiet et hagard des fous. Les criminels consommés ont seuls une assurance qui ressemble à la tranquillité d'une vie honnête, à la sincérité d'une conscience pure.

Prevale photo

“Who can not love, does not deserve prisoners.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Chi non riesce ad amare, non merita prigionieri.
Source: prevale.net

Angela Davis photo
Angela Davis photo
Francis George photo

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history."”

Francis George (1937–2015) Catholic cardinal

Replying to a question about the secularization of Western culture in a meeting with a group of priests on circa May 2010.
Source: The Myth and the Reality of 'I'll Die in My Bed', Tim Drake, National Catholic Register, October 24, 2012, November 21, 2014 http://www.ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/the-myth-and-the-reality-of-ill-die-in-my-bed,

“Prison is a society within a society. It’s a reflection of life in the streets. The jargon may be different, but we think and feel the same as on the streets and we recreate it in prison.”

Miguel Piñero (1946–1988) Puerto Rican writer

As quoted in the book Captive Audience: Prison and Captivity in Contemporary Theatre https://books.google.com/books?id=oEKSAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq about Piñero’s views regarding prison culture