Quotes about prison
page 9

“With each tentative tiptoe and stumble, I had to inwardly assure myself that I was a good comedian and that my life was not pointless. “I am addicted to comfort,” I thought as I tumbled into the wood chips. I have become divorced from nature; I don’t know what the names of the trees and birds are. I don’t know what berries to eat or which stars will guide me home. I don’t know how to sleep outside in a wood or skin a rabbit. We have become like living cutlets, sanitized into cellular ineptitude. They say that supermarkets have three days’ worth of food. That if there was a power cut, in three days the food would spoil. That if cash machines stopped working, if cars couldn’t be filled with fuel, if homes were denied warmth, within three days we’d be roaming the streets like pampered savages, like urban zebras with nowhere to graze. The comfort has become a prison; we’ve allowed them to turn us into waddling pipkins. What is civilization but dependency? Now, I’m not suggesting we need to become supermen; that solution has been averred before and did not end well. Prisoners of comfort, we dread the Apocalypse. What will we do without our pre-packed meals and cozy jails and soporific glowing screens rocking us comatose? The Apocalypse may not arrive in a bright white instant; it may creep into the present like a fog. All about us we may see the shipwrecked harbingers foraging in the midsts of our excess. What have we become that we can tolerate adjacent destitution? That we can amble by ragged despair at every corner? We have allowed them to sever us from God, and until we take our brothers by the hand we will find no peace.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life, God, Peace, Food

“If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you're forgetting about all the music that's to the left of us. I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon & Garfunkel.”

Lars Ulrich (1963) Danish musician

Said upon discovering that, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, uncooperative prisoners were exposed to the Metallica song "Enter Sandman" for extended periods by American interrogators.
Source: [Maddow, Rachel, Rachel Maddow, Lars Ulrich, Metallica's Lars Ulrich joins Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, April 27, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuNfAFOv2F4&t=6m19s, April 18, 2015]

Death, People, Music, Forgetting

“All these new demands, death penalty for rape and long terms in prison for harassing women will only have the offenders roaming free because the burden of proving "beyond reasonable doubt" will become the victim's problem.”

Flavia Agnes (1947) Indian activist and lawyer

On the proposal for stricter laws for sexual harassment, as quoted in " Sexism And The Workplace Wars http://www.outlookindia.com/article/sexism-and-the-workplace-wars/207315" Outlook India (19 April 1999)

Death, Women, Penalty, Problem

“In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U. S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.
I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability…
So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

People, Secret, World, Law

“Had my lineage and rank been accompanied by only moderate success, I should have come to this city as friend rather than prisoner, and you would not have disdained to ally yourself peacefully with one so nobly born, the ruler of so many nations.”
Si quanta nobilitas et fortuna mihi fuit, tanta rerum prosperarum moderatio fuisset, amicus potius in hanc urbem quam captus venissem, neque dedignatus esses claris maioribus ortum, plurimis gentibus imperitantem foedere in pacem accipere.

Caratacus (15–54) British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe

Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.

Success

“At the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh the head of the State was the Caliph and prisoners taken in Sindh were regularly forwarded to him. Kufi, the author of the Chachnama, rightly sums up the position. Out of the total catch, four-fifths was the share of the soldiers, “what remained of the cash and slaves was… sent to Hajjaj (the Governor of Iraq )” for onward transportation to the Khalifa. In such a situation any special acquisition had to be paid for in cash. Muhammad bin Qasim who wished to possess Raja Dahir’s wife Ladi, avers the Chachnama, “purchased her out of the spoils, before making her his wife.” But the price he paid is not mentioned. Similarly, when Hajjaj sent 60,000 slaves captured in India to the Caliph Walid I (705-715 C. E.), the latter “sold some of those female slaves of royal birth”,5 but again their price has not been specified.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Chachnama, trs. Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg, in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

Birth, Time

“We need to have more second chance programs. I'm glad that we're ending private prisons in the federal system; I want to see them ended in the state system. You shouldn't have a profit motivation to fill prison cells with young Americans. So there are some positive ways we can work on this.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Way, Motivation, Chance

“Such grief might make the mountain stoop, reverse the waters where they flow, but cannot burst these ponderous bolts that block us from the prison cells crowded with mortal woe…”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Instead of a Preface

Mountain, Water

“If a Martian were asked to pick the most efficient and humane economic systems on earth, it would certainly not choose the countries which rely most on markets. The United States is a stagnant economy in which real wages have been constant for more than a decade and the real income of the bottom 40 percent of the population declined. It is an inhumane society in which 11.5 percent of the population, some 32 million people, including 20 percent of all children, live in absolute poverty. It is the oldest democracy on earth but also one with the lowest voting rates among democracies and the highest per capita prison population in the world. The fastest developing countries in the world today are among those where the state pursues active industrial and trade policies; the few countries in the world in which almost no one is poor today are those in which the state has been engaged in massive social welfare and labor market policies.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Source: Journal of Democracy. Vol. 3, Nr. 3 (1992), p. 46

Children, People, World, Democracy

“Yes, in fact I was almost single-handed in protesting about holding the prisoners of war. It was largely on the pressure of Mujibur Rahman that Mrs Gandhi was holding them. Because she obviously recognised Bangladesh and his (Mujibur's) stand was clear: Let them recognise Bangladesh as an independent state and then we will free them. And that's what we did later.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

I Don't Know One Editor In India Who Is Well-Read

War

“Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

"Hun Speech": Kaiser Wilhelm II's Address to the German Expeditionary Force Prior to its Departure for China (27 July 1900) http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=755&language=english <br class="br">1900s

Way, History

“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Source: "Masked Racism" (1998)

People, Communication, Business, Problem

“You said in our old ash-tree a bird had built its nest;
Perhaps this very linnet has there its place of rest.
Now who will keep his little ones when night begins to fall?
They have no other shelter, and they will perish all.
There'll be no more sweet singing within that lonely grove;
Now, Henry, free your prisoner, I pray you, for my love.
Our father is a soldier, and in some distant war
He too might be a prisoner in foreign lands afar.”

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

The Prisoner
Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Love, War, Bird, Tree

“There was no way she could know, but Prisoner Zero asked anyway because he was talking to himself; which was all anyone ever did, it seemed to him, talk to themselves while half meanings and misunderstandings fed into the minds of those who thought they were listening.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 51 (pp. 318-319)

Way

“I also remind the House that the use of confessional evidence, which is the basis of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, has led to the imprisonment of the Birmingham Six, who have now served almost 16 years in British prisons. I have visited them in prison several times… My experience of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act is that it has nothing to do with the prevention of terrorism and everything to do with policing and patrolling the Irish community in this country. I have lost count of the number of occasions that I have had telephone calls late at night from Irish people who live in my constituency, who were expecting a son, a daughter, an uncle, an aunt or a father to come across to visit them from Dublin or from Belfast, but who find that they have not arrived. They ask me, "Do you know where they are?" I have no idea where they are. We then start an amazing series of telephone calls to find out whether someone is being held under the Act. A Kafka-like mystery surrounds it and it is not clear whether that person is being held until lawyers make contact and eventually application is made for a writ of habeas corpus.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/mar/06/prevention-of-terrorism in the House of Commons (6 March 1990). <br class="br">1990s

People, Communication, Idea, Time

“Opposite my studio a huge factory — its black walls scarred with red stigmas of mysterious battles — was towering with the gloom of a prison. At night fires gave to innumerable windows menacing blazing looks of demons — while at other times vivid blue-green lights rang sharply in harmony with the radiant yellow-green alertness of cats enjewelling the obscurity around.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Source: "The Brooklyn Bridge (A page of my life)," 1929, p. 87

Cats, Light, Time, Night

“The sacrifices of our people were very great. Out of a population of one million, 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were made political prisoners in Italy and Germany, and 35,000 made to do forced labour, of ground; all the communications, all the ports, mines and electric power installations were destroyed, our agriculture and livestock were plundered, and our entire national economy was wrecked.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, 1941–1948, vol. I (Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1974, 599-600)
Writings, Selected Works, 1941–1948

People, Communication

“After this with kingly energy and determination, he girded up his loins for a war of religion, and invaded Hindustan, and carried away many prisoners of war and other plunder; and in every country, which he conquered, he founded mosques, and he endeavoured to ruin and desolate the territories of Raja Jaipal who, at that time, was the ruler of Hindustan.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

The Tabaqat-i-Akbari translated by B. De, Calcutta, 1973, Vol. I, p. 3.

War, Religion, Time, Country

“I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

The Sean Hannity Show
Radio
2011-04-27 quoted in * Rand Paul, Supposed Defender Of Civil Liberties, Calls For Jailing People Who Attend ‘Radical Political Speeches’
Alex
Seitz-Wald
2011-05-31
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/31/232182/rand-paul-criminalize-speech/
2011-06-02
2010s

People, Religion, Color, Travel

“Our 'overhead' expense in segregating the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying … demonstrate our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. No industrial corporation could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. Yet hardheaded 'captains of industry,' financiers who pride themselves upon their cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and vicious at worst. In our dealings with such elements there is a bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy elements of the community.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Chapter 12, "Woman and the Future"

Education, Home, Communication, Failure

“It is in prison … that one becomes a real revolutionary.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Attributed in "Communists: The Battle over the Tomb" in TIME (24 April 1964).
Attributions

“The unspoken ideology of capitalism didn’t admit, back then, of any corporate duty beyond making a return on investment for the shareholders while obeying the law.
Then the terrible teens hit, with a global recession followed by a stuttering shock wave of corporate scandals as rock-ribbed enterprises were exposed as hollow husks run by conscience-free predators who were even less community-minded and altruistic than gangsters. The ravenous supermarket chains had gutted the entire logistic and retail sector, replacing high-street banks and post offices as well as food stores and gas stations, recklessly destroying community infrastructure; manufacturers had outsourced production to the cheapest overseas bidders, hollowing out the middle-class incomes on which consumer capitalism depended: The prison-industrial complex, higher education, and private medical sectors were intent on milking a public purse that no longer had a solid tax base with which to pay. Maximizing short-term profit worked brilliantly for sociopathic executives looking to climb the promotion ladder—but as a long-term strategy for stability, a spiraling Gini coefficient left a lot to be desired.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 7, “Liz: Black Swans” (pp. 82-83)

Education, Law, Food, Communication

“The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter I: The Prison Door

Happiness

“When you are free of the world, you can do something about it. As long as you are a prisoner of it, you are helpless to change it. On the contrary, whatever you do will aggravate the situation.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Change
Source: "I am That." P.45.

World, Change

“Terrorists are insane people, clothes also can change one's thoughts sometimes. When we were searching for prisoners who had escaped a detention centre, Melis Turganbayev (the former interior minister) came to me and said that they had been eavesdropping on telephone conversations of wives and mistresses of criminals. Their wives and mistresses wore sacks on their heads and they wanted to organise bombings. If you do not like Kyrgyzstan you can leave our country and go wherever you want. We can pay your travel expenses, even to Syria.”

Almazbek Atambayev (1956) President of Kyrgyzstan

Speaking at a press conference — Kyrgyzstan president: 'Women in mini skirts don't become suicide bombers' http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-36846249, BBC (13 August 2016)

People, Travel, Search, Change

“It would serve the Americans right if we emptied the prisons and let the subversives take power. They'd soon show Washington just how much they appreciate good old American values.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 465
Attributed

“For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue forever; and that they come out of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death. These are the Divine doctrines of the Essens about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Life, Death, Men, God

“Eisenhower used to tell me that this place was a prison. I never felt freer.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

As quoted in "What a Real President Was Like: To Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society Meant Hope and Dignity" http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/doc/307079109.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Nov+13%2C+1988&author=Moyers%2C+Bill+D&desc=What+a+Real+President+Was+Like%3B+To+Lyndon+Johnson%2C+the+Great+Society+Meant+Hope+and+Dignity, by Bill Moyers, The Washington Post (13 November 1988).

“Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.”

Michael Howard (1941) British politician

Colin Brown, "Howard seeks to placate 'angry majority'", The Independent, October 7, 1993
Speech to the Conservative Party conference, October 6, 1993

Thinking

“Well there are walls, that make a prison, many names that can bring hate. Yeah tear 'em down and ride 'em over.”

Jackson C. Frank (1943–1999) American musician

Don't Look Back

Hate, Tear

“This long preamble just to tell you not to judge your own work as you are the last person to see it (with true eyes) – What you see neither redeems nor condemns it – All words used to explain or praise it are false translations of what is going on beyond sensations.
You are, as we all are, obsessed by the accumulation of principles or anti-principles which generally cloud your mind with their terminology and, without knowing it, you are a prisoner of what you think is a liberated education –
In your particular case, you are certainly the victim of the 'Ecole de Paris' [French abstract art movement which developed after world War 2. ], a joke that’s lasted for 60 years.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote in a letter to Jean Crotti (Duchamp's brother-in-law) and his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York 17 Augustus 1952; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 167
1951 - 1968

War, World, Education, Art

“The prisoners who saved themselves were not the best, the predestined to good, the bearers of a message: what I had seen and experienced showed the exact opposite. Survived the worst of preference, the selfish, the violent, the insensitive, the collaborators of the 'gray area', the spies. It was not a certain rule (there were, nor are there in human affairs, certain rules), but was also a rule. I felt so innocent, but trooped among the saved, and therefore constantly looking for an excuse, before me and the others. Survived the worst, that is the most suitable; the best are all dead.”

Primo Levi book The Drowned and the Saved

The Drowned and the Saved (1986)

Selfishness, Dead

“What, then, shall we do? someone may ask. What else, indeed, than devote ourselves to the care of our souls, keeping all our leisure free from other things. Accordingly, we should not be slaves of the body, except so far as is strictly necessary; but our souls we should supply with all things that are best, through philosophy freeing them, as from a prison, from association with the passions of the body.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 415

Soul, Passion

“En route to Tokyo in 1945 to embark on the occupation of Japan, U. S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur laid out his goals for Japan to his aide, Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney: "First destroy the military power, then build up representative government, enfranchise women, free political prisoners, liberate farmers, establish free labor, destroy monopolies, abolish police repression, liberate the press, liberalize education, and decentralize political power."”

Sung-Yoon Lee Korea and East Asia scholar, professor

The transformation of North Korea will require nothing less.
https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/16/life_after_kim
Life After Kim
February 16, 2010
Foreign Policy
March 1, 2013
https://www.webcitation.org/6EyqdXfyA?url=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/16/life_after_kim?page=full
March 9, 2013
no

Women, Education

“Loneliness feels like prison.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From New Year's Eve (23 March 1956)

Feeling, Loneliness

“He (Mahmud) scattered the army of the Hindus in one attack and took Rai Jaipal prisoner. He carried him to the distant part of his kingdom of Ghazni and delivered him to an agent of the Slave Market (dalal-i-bazar). I heard that at the command of the king (Mahmud), the Brokers of the Market, (maqiman-i-bazar in the original) sold Jaipal as a slave for 80 Dinars and deposited the money realised by the sale in the Treasury.”

Jayapala (964–1001) Ruler of the Kabal Shabi

Hodivala, 192-93. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Money, Distant, Parting

“In 1848, driven by a revolution in Paris, King Louis Philippe abdicated and Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) was elected president of France. Four years later, after a coup d’etat, Louis Napoleon styled himself Napoleon II, emperor of France.
napoleon III’s first act as emperor was to imprison his political opponents. He was a crafty monarch, and his ambition during his reign was to seek glory through military adventurism while the great mass of French peasants remained ina state of poverty and despair.
Initially, Napoleon III achieved a short-lived public popularity by trying to “modernize” France and liberalize its economy, but his legacy remains that of a dictator and conniving politician.
In 1870, fearful that Germany was expanding too fast, Napoleon III declared war against this neighbor. The French were quickly defeated, and Napoleon III became a prisoner of war. Upon release in 1871, he was exiled to England, where he lived until his death in 1873.
Maurice Joly was mindful of this growing tension between Germany and France. He had been born in 1821 of French parents. He was admitted to the Paris bar as an attorney and was a one-time member of the General Assembly. Joly devoted most of time to writing caustic essays on French politics. He joined many other severe critics of Napoleon III, who regarded him as a ruthless despot.
In 1864, Joly wrote a book called “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.”…It intended to liken Napoleon III to the infamous Machiavelli, author of “The Prince,” a treatise on the acquisition of power. Holy intended to reveal the French dictator’s dark and evil plans.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Will Eisner, pp. 7-8
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Death, War, Books, Fear

“Eastern Prussia was a battlefield during World War I years. And right from here, on September 1, 1939, began the spark of fire for the coming of the second world war. And in 1941, Eastern Prussia invaded Soviet soil with a powerful military onslaught, unleashing a grip of heavy burden, tragedy, and torture into the Soviet pre-Baltic and also the inhabitants of Leningrad, Pskov, and the Novgorod regions. Right from the very first days of the second world war, Eastern Prussia was completely transformed into a diabolic system of concentration camp strongholds for captured military people, and became a cruel prison for the young and females, who were brought from many European countries. In the first place, from the Soviet Union. And, aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!”

Hovhannes Bagramyan (1897–1982) Soviet military commander

The Germans are being referred to as dogs in the end of this famous quote. Quoted in "I. C. Bagramyan: A Photo Album About A Soviet Marshal" - Yerevan - 1987

War, People, World, Winter

“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are—nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought?—but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech in South Carolina (19 July 2016)
2010s, 2016, July

Women, Men, People, World

“Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment.”

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

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Education, Patience, Perseverance

“All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
“The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India….. Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

Women, Men, Marriage, War

“Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

Source: In Memory of W.B. Yeats (1939), Lines 66–77

Singing, Heart, Night

“Behind all the Great-Society-style and standardized testing, wars on poverty or drugs, self-esteem seminars. A good portion of the African-American population was simply institutionalized or interned, in public housing complexes, in urban schools, and in one of the biggest prison systems the world has ever known. It all amounts to a sprawling race gulag in which people are both dependent and hedged about with restrictions.”

Crispin Sartwell (1958) American philosopher

White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)

War, People, World, School

“Wealth, or large amounts of possessions seemed to him limiting. They brought their own prison with them. He preferred, since he had once known a kind of prison, to travel free.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, Companions on the Road (1975), Chapter 2, “The Chalice” (p. 16)

Travel, Wealth

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison… the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

Housing

“Injecting illegal drugs is NOT OK! Prison must be a place where prisoners can detoxify and have the chance to break the habit. This avenue should be addressed, rather than options which reinforce the addictive behaviour.”

Stewart Leggett (1944) Australian politician

HIV/AIDS - Hepatitis B Inquiry (Part II): Dissenting Statement by Mr Stewart Leggett MP (1997)

Chance

“Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on. Looked at from one side, the wall enclosed a barren sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres. […] It was in fact a quarantine. The wall shut in not only the landing field but also the ships that came down out of space, and the men that came on the ships, and the worlds they came from, and the rest of the universe. It enclosed the universe, leaving Anarres outside, free. Looked at from the other side, the wall enclosed Anarres: the whole planet was inside it, a great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and other men, in quarantine.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Dispossessed (1974), Chapter 1 (pp. 1–2)

Men, World, Universe, Dependency

“And the world is busting at its seams;
And you're just a prisoner of your dreams.
Holding on for your life 'cause you work all day
To blow 'em away in the night.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Night"
Song lyrics, Born to Run (1975)

Life, World, Dreams, Night

“Never go to a public lavatory in London. I always pee in the street. You may be fined a few pounds for committing a nuisance, but in a public lavatory you risk two years in prison because a policeman in plain clothes says you smiled at him.”

Derek Jackson (1906–1982) British physicist

as quoted by [Diana Mosley, Loved ones: pen portraits, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985, 93]

Smile, Clothes

“For his Spiritual Church Joachim of Fiore foresaw the continuance of the Papacy (much modified), but the bishops were to disappear. If I think at all of the Church to come, then I hope and pray above all for a revival, indeed resurrection of the episcopal office. To my mind it is still a prisoner of its almost thousand-year long disastrous fusion with temporal power. Strange - only a few years ago I thought the Emperor Otto I just marvellous and was full of admiration for his genius in raising the bishops to Reichsfürsten - princes of the realm - thus securing an unshakeable foundation for his Empire. Politically it was a brilliant decision… Yet I can imagine no way in which a mortal enemy of the Church in all craft and cunning could have fastened a worse fate upon her… For how often was their charismatic office as pastors overshadowed, indeed frequently rendered impossible, by their temporal mission and worldly achievements..”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

Fate, Hope, Way, Imagination

“Most might think that in America, you can freely publish what you wish, then (and now) an over-zealous prosecutor can put you on trial simply because the government does not like your art. And, there is no way to know if your content is “obscene” and thus punishable by prison, until after a jury rules that it is so.”

Marc Randazza (1969) American writer

Art, Way, Thinking

“Lee wondered how Jefferson Davis had ever managed to inveigle him into accepting the Confederate Presidency. Even without counting the armed guards who surrounded the presidential residence on Shockoe Hill, he found himself a prisoner of his position. To do everything that needed doing, he should have been born triplets. The one of him available was not nearly enough; whenever he did anything, he felt guilty because he was neglecting something else.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 458

“As I well: I wish they had told me so before, since the expecting of a release put a stop to some business; thou mayst tell my father, who I know will ask thee, these words: that my prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man; I have no need to fear, God will make amends for all; they are mistaken in me; I value not their threats and resolutions, for they shall know I can weary out their malice and peevishness, and in me shall they all behold a resolution above fear; […]”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Refusing to recant his ideas, after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for expressing his ideas on religious freedoms (1668 or 1669), as quoted in William Penn, America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html by Jim Powell.

God, Fear, Business

“If my soul could get away from this so-called prison, be granted all the list of attributes generally bestowed on spirits, my first ramble on spirit wings would not be among the volcanoes of the moon. Nor should I follow the sunbeams to their sources in the sun. I should hover about the beauty of our own good star. I should not go moping among the tombs, nor around the artificial desolation of men. I should study Nature's laws in all their crossings and unions; I should follow magnetic streams to their source and follow the shores of our magnetic oceans. I should go among the rays of the aurora, and follow them to their beginnings, and study their dealings and communions with other powers and expressions of matter. And I should go to the very center of our globe and read the whole splendid page from the beginning. But my first journeys would be into the inner substance of flowers, and among the folds and mazes of Yosemite's falls. How grand to move about in the very tissue of falling columns, and in the very birthplace of their heavenly harmonies, looking outward as from windows of ever-varying transparency and staining!”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

18 January 1870, pages 43-44
John of the Mountains, 1938

Men, Law, Beauty, Soul

“[his plan to prevent potential boyfriends from taking advantage of his daughter]
I'm going to pull him in tight next to me so only he and I can hear the conversation. And I'm gonna say to him, "Boy, look at me. You see that little girl right there? She's my only little girl, man. She's my life. So if you have any... thoughts... about huggin', or... kissin', you remember these words: 'I've got no problem going back to prison.'"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie (2003)

Life, Girl, Boy, Problem

“The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

La condition humaine [Man's Fate] (1933)

Star, Drawing

“Who would be so besotted as to die without having made at least the round of this, his prison?”

Marguerite Yourcenar book The Abyss

Qui serait assez insensé pour mourir sans avoir fait au moins le tour de sa prison?
The Highroad, p. 11
The Abyss (1968)

“When we can get beyond that smoky world, there, out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and of which they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in the English country, in the days when people cared about such things, was there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land they were made for: — the land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, little plains, swelling, speedily- changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep- walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

The Decorative Arts (1877)

People, World, Home, Mountain

“New South Wales did not begin as a penal colony; it is better to think of it beginning as a colony of convicts… Why wasn't early New South Wales a penal colony? The short answer is that British officials in 1786 could not conceive of such a beast: a society of wardens and prisoners designed for punishment and control, as the French ran much later on Devil's Island.”

John Hirst (1942–2016) Australian historian

Australian History in 7 Questions (2014)

Thinking

“No one underestimated Jap: he might be a subhuman creature who tortured and starved prisoners of war to death, raped women captives, and used civilians for bayonet practice, but there was no braver soldier in the whole history of war, and if he fought to a finish…”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. 141.

Death, Women, War, History

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life, Death, Women, Hate

“In the same way that in freedom of information around the world, the onus is always… the balance is always on disclosure and the state has to argue why it keeps things secret. But the problem always is in enforcement and who enforces it. And it becomes particularly problematic in the intelligence agencies. Because there you've got this argument of national security and what is happening is that national security is becoming the new word of God, where you can't challenge it. You can't challenge the facts behind why we go to war or why have we put people in prison or why have we occupied a country. And that's where I do kind of think that we need to push the line further.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, Chatham House Talk (September 28, 2011)

God, War, People, Secret

“Thousands — millions and billions — of animals are killed for food. That is very sad. We human beings can live without meat, especially in our modern world. We have a great variety of vegetables and other supplementary foods, so we have the capacity and the responsibility to save billions of lives. I have seen many individuals and groups promoting animal rights and following a vegetarian diet. This is excellent. Certain killing is purely a "luxury." … But perhaps the saddest is factory farming. The poor animals there really suffer. I once visited a poultry farm in Japan where they keep 200,000 hens for two years just for their eggs. During those two years, they are prisoners. Then after two years, when they are no longer productive, the hens are sold. That is really shocking, really sad. We must support those who are attempting to reduce that kind of unfair treatment. An Indian friend told me that his young daughter has been arguing with him that it is better to serve one cow to ten people than to serve chicken or other small animals, since more lives would be involved. In the Indian tradition, beef is always avoided, but I think there is some logic to her argument. Shrimp, for example, are very small. For one plate, many lives must be sacrificed. To me, this is not at all delicious. I find it really awful, and I think it is better to avoid these things. If your body needs meat, it may be better to eat bigger animals. Eventually you may be able to eliminate the need for meat. I think that our basic nature as human beings is to be vegetarian — making every effort not to harm other living beings. If we apply our intelligence, we can create a sound, nutritional program. It is very dangerous to ignore the suffering of any sentient being.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Interview in Worlds in Harmony: Dialogues on Compassionate Action, Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992, pp. 20-21.

People, World, Sadness, Food

“When Nicholas II was crowned tsar of Russia in 1894, the country was seething with unrest. Brought up by private tutors, he had little training in the affairs of state. He was dull, reactionary, and an ineffective ruler who was easily influenced.
Although revolution was slowly brewing, Russia on the surface remained a prisoner of its feudal past. In order to maintain the appearance of stability, Nicholas II engaged ina policy of suppreission and later on supported pogroms against Jews.
Such anti-Semitic views were not new. Even before the assassination in 1881 of Alexander II (Nicholas II’s grandfather) the Romanov family had been convinced of p-lots against the tsar.
During his own reign, Nicholas II was easily swayed by strong opinions. He veered from one plan to another depending on the advice of the most articulate in his council. His most trusted adviser was Sergei Yulievich Witte, a clever but sometimes unpopular councilor who was known to have liberal modernistic views regarded as controversial by conservatives, who dominated the court.
Witte had two very resentful enemies…Gorymikine and Rachkobsky, who were associated with the secret police.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 21-23

Secret, Family, Support, Strong

“The little red lark, like a rosy spark
Of song, to his sun-burst flies;
But till you are risen, earth is a prison,
Full of my captive sighs.”

Alfred Perceval Graves (1846–1931) Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter, and school inspector

Song, "The Little Red Lark".

Sun

“Everyone knows that the Chinese regime is coming to an end. I just say to the people in China who are guilty of crimes of genocide, such as harvesting organs from Falun Gong prisoners—we know your names. We know what you're doing… and you will be punished. This is the world of 2006 and beyond. It is a world of human rights and democracy, and a world in which the CCP has no place.”

Edward McMillan-Scott (1949) British politician

The Epoch Times, Nov 11, 2006 http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-11-11/48037.html

People, World, Democracy

“Tradition is a prison with majority opinion the modern jailer.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 108

“The great paradox of Australian history is that what started out as a colony populated by people whom Britain had thrown out proved to be so loyal to the British Empire for so long. America had begun as a combination of tobacco plantation and Puritan utopia, a creation of economic and religious liberty, and ended up as a rebel republic. Australia started out as a jail, the very negation of liberty. Yet the more reliable colonists turned out to be not the Pilgrims but the prisoners.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

People, History

“Three days later we went after him again, and this time we got him. Not a mark on him. We got him. We brought him back into our base there and we had a Sea Land container set up to hold prisoners in, and I said put him in there. They put him in there, there was one guard with him. I said search him, they searched him, and then I walked in with no one in there but the guard, and I looked at him and said, "Are you Osman Atto?" And he said "Yes."”

William G. Boykin (1948) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

And I said, "Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God." <br class="br"> Web Archives: Homestead.co, "General Boykin Bio" http://web.archive.org/web/20040207103627/www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/generalboykin.html, Jan, 2003.

God, Search, Time, Sea

“You have seen the impetuosity of the Hindus and their indifference to death, whenever any calamity befalls them, as at this moment. If, therefore, you refuse to grant peace in the hope of obtaining plunder, tribute, elephants and prisoners, then there is no alternative for us but to mount the horse of stern determination, destroy our property, take out the eyes of our elephants, cast our children into the fire, and rush on each other with sword and spear, so that all that will be left to you, is stones and dirt, dead bodies, and scattered bones.”

Jayapala (964–1001) Ruler of the Kabal Shabi

Cited by Utbi, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Death, Children, Peace, Hope

“It is an international embarrassment that we put more people behind bars than any other country on earth. Due in large part to private prisons, incarceration has been a source of major profits to private corporations. Study after study after study has shown private prisons are not cheaper, they are not safer, and they do not provide better outcomes for either the prisoners or the state. We have got to end the private prison racket in America as quickly as possible. Our focus should be on keeping people out of jail and making sure they stay out when they are released. This means funding jobs and education not more jails and incarceration.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Sanders Applauds Decision to End Federal Use of Private Prisons http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-applauds-decision-to-end-federal-use-of-private-prisons (18 August 2016) <br class="br">2010s, 2016

People, Education, Study, Parting

“Do you expect me, after all my history as a militant and as one of the Iraqi leaders, to go to an American prison – to go to Guantanamo? I would rather die”

Tariq Aziz (1936–2015) Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein

Before the Invasion of Iraq, BBC News (April 24, 2003), "Tariq Aziz in U.S. Custody; New York Moves Closer to Rebuilding at Ground Zero" http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/24/se.00.html.

History

“But even when the Muslim position was not that strong, say, during Mahmud’s son Ibrahim’s campaign in Hindustan when “a fierce struggle ensued, but Ibrahim at length gained victory, and slew many of them. Those who escaped fled into the jungles. Nearly 100,000 of their women and children were taken prisoners…””

Ibrahim of Ghazna (1032–1099) sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3 quoting Maulana Ahmad, Tarikh-i-Alfi, E.D., V, 163; Farishtah, I, 49.

Women, Children, Strong, Victory

“For those who live inside a myth, it seems a self-evident fact. Human progress is a fact of this kind. If you accept it you have a place in the grand march of humanity. Humankind is, of course, not marching anywhere. ‘Humanity’ is a fiction composed from billions of individuals for each of whom life is singular and final. But the myth of progress is extremely potent. When it loses its power those who have lived by it are – as Conrad put it, describing Kayerts and Carlier – ‘like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedoms’. When faith in the future is taken from them, so is the image they have of themselves. If they then opt for death, it is because without that faith they can no longer make sense of living.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

An Old Chaos: The Call of Progress (pp. 6-7)
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (2013)

Life, Death, Faith, Sense

“For me, as prisoner number LB32/05 at Vaturekuka, is something I will live with for the rest of my life, without any regret or shame because I do not only believe, but I know, and I repeat I know, that what I did then was right because if I did not do anything then, part of my people who were soldiers at the Sukanaivalu Barracks then would have been dead.”

Naiqama Lalabalavu (1953) Fijian politician

Parliamentary speech, 17 November 2005 (excerpts)

Life, People, Parting, Dead

“The resettlement of populations scattered by war and by enemy occupation is one of the problems with which Europe will be most urgently faced when the occupied countries are set free. Since hostilities began, millions of people have left homes destroyed or threatened with destruction; millions more have been transplanted, deported, or expelled to make room for foreign newcomers who have taken over their property; millions of others again have been taken prisoner or individually recruited as workers and sent away from their countries to serve the occupying power.”

Eugene M. Kulischer (1881–1956) American sociologist

Prefatory note
The Displacement Of Population In Europe, 1943

Hostility, War, People, Home

“Society, with all its prisons and bayonets and whips and ostracisms and starvations, is powerless in the face of the Anarchist who is prepared to sacrifice his own life in the battle with it. Our natural safety from the cheap and devastating explosives which every Russian student can make … lies in the fact that brave and resolute men, when they are rascals, will not risk their skins for the good of humanity, and, when they are sympathetic enough to care for humanity, abhor murder, and never commit it until their consciences are outraged beyond endurance. The remedy is, then, simply not to outrage their consciences.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

Life, Men, Nature

“At Mondorf and Nuremberg, Goering had undergone a systematic withdrawal cure which had ended his drug addiction. Ever since, he was in better form than I had ever seen him. He displayed remarkable energy and became the most formidable personality among the defendants. I thought it a great pity that he had not been up to this level before the outbreak of the war and in critical situations during the war. He would have been the only person whose authority and popularity Hitler would have had to reckon with. Actually, he had been one of the few sensible enough to foresee the doom that awaited us. But having thrown away his chance to save the country while that was still possible, it was absurd and truly criminal for him to use his regained powers to hoodwink his own people. His whole policy was one of deception. Once, in the prison yard something was said about Jewish survivors in Hungary. Goering remarked coldly: "So, there are still some there? I thought we had knocked off all of them. Somebody slipped up again."”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

I was stunned.
Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 512

War, People, Chance, Personality

“Again, it is a new doctrine of constitutional law that one indicted for disobedience to an unconstitutional statute may not defend on the ground of the invalidity of the statute, but must obey it though he knows it is no law, and, after he has suffered the disgrace of conviction and lost his liberty by sentence, then, and not before, seek, from within prison walls, to test the validity of the law.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Writing for the court, Korematsu v. United States, 33 U.S. 124 (1944).

Law, Suffering

“A Man may dwell so long upon a Thought, that it may take him Prisoner.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections

“In 1869 that grand old warrior of the social revolution, the elder Liebknecht, was arrested and sentenced to prison for three months, because of his war, as a Socialist, on the Kaiser and on the Junkers that rule Germany. In the meantime the Franco-Prussian war broke out. Liebknecht and Bebel were the Socialist members in the Reichstag. They were the only two who had the courage to protest against taking Alsace-Lorraine from France and annexing it to Germany. And for this they were sentenced two years to a prison fortress charged with high treason; because, even in that early day, almost fifty years ago, these leaders, these forerunners of the international Socialist movement were fighting the Kaiser and fighting the Junkers of Germany. They have continued to fight them from that day to this. Multiplied thousands of Socialists have languished in the jails of Germany because of their heroic warfare upon the despotic ruling class of that country.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

War, Courage, Fight, Country

“It is the refutation alike of communism and socialism that they thwart the instinct of expansion; that they substitute for individual energy the energy of the government; that they substitute for human personality the blind, mechanical power of the State. The one system, as the other, marks the end of individualism. The one system, as the other, would make each man the image of his neighbor. The one system, as the other, would hold back the progressive, and, by uniformity of reward, gain uniformity of type.
I can look forward to no blissful prospect for a race of men that, under the dominion of the State, at the cost of all freedom of action, at the cost, indeed, of their own true selves, shall enjoy, if one will, a fair abundance of the material blessings of life. … Into that prison of socialism, with broken enterprise and broken energy, as serfs under the mastery of the State, while human personality is preferred to unreasoning mechanism, mankind must hesitate to step.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Other writings, The Altruist in Politics (1889)

Life, Men, Communication, Freedom

“Persons convicted of the forcible violation of any female prisoner shall be put to death.”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

Article XLI.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

Death, Personality

“Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far, as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven, that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

IV. Mediscque Vocatur; The physician is sent for.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

World, Sun, Sea

“The inhuman character of Stalinism was demonstrated by the repressions of prisoners of war who survived fascist camps and then were thrown into Stalinist camps, the anti-worker "decrees," the criminal exile of entire peoples condemned to slow death, the unenlightened zoological kind of anti-Semitism that was characteristic of Stalin bureaucracy and the NKVD (and Stalin personally), the Ukrainophobia characteristic of Stalin, and the draconian laws for the protection of socialist property (five years' imprisonment for stealing some grain from the fields and so forth) that served mainly as a means of fulfilling the demands of the "slave market."”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships

Death, War, People, Law

“Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Prison and the Angel
Undated

Soul

“I am 36 years old and I have been a criminal all of my life. I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in Jails, Reform Schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal. Others may have different theories as to my life but I have no theory about it. I know the facts. If any man ever was a habitual criminal. I am one. In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both Man and God. If either had made more, I should cheerfully have broken them also. The mere fact that I have done these things is quite sufficient for the average person. Very few peopel ever consider it worth while to wonder why I am what I am and do what I do. All that they think it is necessary to do is to catch me, try me convict me and send me to prison for a few years, make life miserable for me while in prison and then turn me loose again. That is the system that is in practice today in this country. The consequences are that such that any one and every one can see. crime and lots of it. Those who are sincere in thier desire to put down crime, are to be pitied for all of thier efforts which accomplish so little in the desired direction. They are the ones who are decieved by thier own ignorance and by the trickery and greed of others who profit the most by crime.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 187, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life, God, School, Law

“World order will be secured only when the whole world has laid down these weapons which seem to offer us present security but threaten the future survival of the human race. That armistice day seems very far away. The vast resources of this planet are being devoted more and more to the means of destroying, instead of enriching, human life.
But the world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution. Nor has mankind survived the tests and trials of thousands of years to surrender everything — including its existence — now. This Nation has the will and the faith to make a supreme effort to break the log jam on disarmament and nuclear tests — and we will persist until we prevail, until the rule of law has replaced the ever dangerous use of force.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Second State of the Union Address

Life, World, Faith, Law

“…the prisoner’s dreams is the guard’s spirituality”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

(400).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Dreams

“Most societies are ruled by mediocre people that have no vision and no imagination. Most rulers are scared of creation and creative people. Artists are funny people. All they want is to touch and move, challenge and surprise others. But dictators hate surprises more than anything else. All they want is to turn their territory into a neat little toy prison camp and play with their little toy people. Push them around, rip a leg or a head off now and then or throw them into the garbage when they are tired of their stupid, little doll faces.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Interview by Michal Szyksznian http://www.gottfried-helnwein-interviews.com/interviews/celebritarian.html, celebritarian.pl, 2009

Hate, People, Stupidity, Imagination

“I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They're ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours, in which the first humans are doomed and cursed eternally for asking a question, for partaking of the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge". It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It's a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown. What is a human being without a childhood? Our long childhood is a critical feature of our species. It differentiates us, to a degree, from most other species. We take a longer time to mature. We depend upon these formative years and the social fabric to learn many of the things we need to know.”

Ann Druyan (1949) American author and producer

Ann Druyan interviewed by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. — "Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe … and Carl Sagan" http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ann_druyan_talks_about_science_religion/. Skeptical Inquirer 27 (6). November–December 2003.

Question, Knowledge, Thinking, Tree

“The duty sergeant was going through his routine of asking each brawling set of prisoners who the Billy and who the Tim was. If the handshake is right he will let the Billy go and slap the Tim around a bit. That way everybody's happy. The Billy gets to feel superior and delude himself that being a non-churchgoing 'protestant' is somehow important; the Tim gets to feel persecuted and indulge his paranoia about masonic conspiracies; the sergeant gets to slap the Tim around.”

Irvine Welsh book The Acid House

"The Two Philosophers".
The Acid House (1994)

Happiness, Way, Feeling

“I've never seen American Idol but I am grateful to them. That show is one of Fox's biggest moneymakers, and some of that money goes to pay for shows like Prison Break. Simon Cowell's been signing my paychecks and for that I say thanks.”

Wentworth Miller (1972) British-born American actor

Интервюта, статии и др. от списания. 11 Nov 2006. 'Prison Break' Star Wentworth Miller Locks Down Breakout Role. 27 Aug 2009. http://telenovellas.4.forumer.com/a/_post8846.html (May 1, 2006)

Money

“If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life—thy shining youth—in the irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance.”

Charles Lamb Last Essays of Elia

“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Life, Youth, Age, Hope

“I notice in Kentucky a disposition to cry against the tyranny and oppression of our Government. Now, were it not for war you know tyranny could not exist in our Government; therefore any acts of late partaking of that aspect are the result of war; and who made this war? Already we find ourselves drifting toward new issues, and are beginning to forget the strong facts of the beginning. You know and I know that long before the North, or the Federal Government, dreamed of war the South had seized the U. S. arsenals, forts, mints, and custom-houses, and had made prisoners of war of the garrisons sent at their urgent demand to protect them 'against Indians, Mexicans, and negroes.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

War, Dreams, Strong, Housing

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn't my own man anymore; I was my country's.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

Love, Life, Wisdom, People

“Disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorist acts may, if carried to extremes, only scatter and squander our forces. That is a fact, which, of course, should not be forgotten. On the other hand, under no circumstances should it be forgotten that a slogan calling for an uprising has already been issued, that the uprising has already begun. To launch attacks under favourable circumstances is not only every revolutionary’s right, but his plain duty. The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations, the liberation of prisoners, the seizure of government funds for the needs of the uprising—such operations are already being carried out wherever insurrection is rife, in Poland and in the Caucasus, and every detachment of the revolutionary army must be ready to start such operations at a moment’s notice. Each group should remember that if it allows a favourable opportunity for such an operation to slip by today, it will be guilty of unpardonable inactivity, of passivity—and such an offence is the greatest crime a revolutionary can commit at a time of insurrection, the greatest disgrace that can befall anyone who is striving for liberty in deed, and not in word alone.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents, Collected Works, Vol. 9, pages. 420-24.
Attributions

Time

“Much suspected by me,
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Written with a diamond on her window at Woodstock (1555), published in Acts and Monuments (1563) by John Foxe.

“His fables so brutally imposed, sweated by heart. Their morality is a prison which I don't want to penetrate anymore.”

Paul Éluard (1895–1952) French poet

Paul Éluard on La Fontaine
Attributed by: Ivry, Benjamin (1996). Francis Poulenc, p. 125, 20th-Century Composers series. Phaidon Press Limited. ISBN 071483503X.

Heart

“The Bible is a window in this prison-world, through which we may look into eternity.”

Timothy Dwight IV (1752–1817) American historian

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 29.

World

Quotes about prison page 9

Quotes about prison
page 9