Prison Walls Quotes

The highest prison walls in the universe are not made of bricks or stone, but of ignorance. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

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

How irresponsible of Him to allow terrible things to happen o those who didn't deserve it. Could God see and hear through prison walls and across cell bars? If He could not, He was not all-powerful. If He could, and still did nothing to help those in need, He was not merciful. Either way, He was not what He claimed to be. He was an impostor. ~ Elif Shafak

A slave will amuse himself in his dungeon; a free man must file through his chains and dig through his prison-walls before he can frolic. ~ George MacDonald

You can sail in the desert with a ship of fools. You can smuggle in Moses and his book of rules. But you can't take a mother and give her back her son. What kind of freedom is bought with a gun? People like to build their prison walls when they're afraid to look inside ... a thousand points of light are the muzzle flashes in the night. And the freedoms you profess to hold won't bring the dead back from the cold. ~ Bruce Dickinson

Most people end up being conformists; they adapt to prison life. A few become reformers; they fight for better lighting, better ventilation. Hardly anyone becomes a rebel, a revolutionary who breaks down the prison walls. You can only be a revolutionary when you see the prison walls in the first place. ~ Anthony De Mello

When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline. ~ Samira Wiley

Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Beautiful flames, can destroy so many things - prison walls that hold you, stitches that bind you fast. ~ Susanna Clarke

There are many more serial killers living outside the prison walls than inside. ~ Pat Brown

Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted and indifferent. ~ Jim Morrison

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

The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them - neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all. ~ Fidel Castro

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

Cold walls do not a prison make, nor iron bands a bondsman. ~ Scott Lynch

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

...not with the Depression walking around outside the prison walls like a dangerous criminal, one that couldn't be caged as our charges were. ~ Stephen King

Every wall that I build to lock the world out is yet another wall that I've built that locks me in. And in the most heinous kind of imprisonment imaginable, I find that I have become both warden and inmate. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The pine trees were rows of knife-blades whispering: "Fall upon us!" and in the gathering darkness the torrent roared and howled, beating against its rocking prison walls with the frenzy of an everlasting despair.
"Padre!" Arthur rose, shuddering, and drew back from the precipice. "It is like hell."
"No, my son," Montanelli answered softly, "it is only like a human soul. ~ Ethel Lilian Voynich

I felt a strange sense of calm and realized what I was feeling was the release of responsibility. Nobody expected me to be at work the next day. Nobody was trying to call me. I had no e-mail to check. Ghost enthusiasts weren't stalking me on Facebook. Our responsibilities were stripped down to the bare biological basics: thirst, hunger, cold. All at once I could see why lifelong convicts got to where they couldn't function outside of prison walls. You're almost functioning more at a level for which the human brain was intended. ~ David Wong

Ah, Jo, instead of wishing that, thank God that 'Father and Mother were particular', and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to hedge them round with principles which may seem like prison walls to impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character upon in womanhood. ~ Louisa May Alcott

How can a prisoner plot his escape if he doesn't believe a world exists outside the prison walls? ~ Skye Jethani

All our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death. ~ John Donne

Expression is as necessary to me as leaf and blossoms are to the black branches of the trees that show themselves above the prison walls and are so restless in the wind. Between my art and the world there is now a wide gulf, but between art and myself there is none. I hope at least that there is none. ~ Oscar Wilde

When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Besides, the storm which rages in her breast was increasing in its violence, and she would have burst her prison walls if her body could have enjoyed, for a single instant, the same proportions as her soul. ~ Alexandre Dumas

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes.

On a winter day she was in the studio, posing for him in the nude, her arms raised in a graceful position. To hold it for any length of time must have been a strain, I wondered how she managed to keep so still; until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles.

Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.

Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the str ~ Anna Kavan

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

Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. ~ Rumi

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

When you live outside prison walls, it may seem like life inside has a romanticized veneer on it, like you're watching a movie or reading a novel. When you live it, the veneer comes off. ~ Nesly Clerge

The rapacious white tribe who were arriving in increasing numbers, not only as convicts but also as settlers, wanted to own everything they touched. They slashed and burned the wilderness so that they might graze their sheep and grow their corn. They erected fences around the land they now called their own and which henceforth they were prepared to defend with muskets and sometimes even their lives. They built church steeples and prison walls and homes of granite hewn from the virgin rock and timber cut from the umbrageous mountain forests. They possessed everything upon the island, the wild beasts that grazed upon its surface, the birds that flew over it, the fish that swam in its rushing river torrents and the barking seals resting in the quiet bays and secluded inlets. Everything they thought worthwhile was attached to the notion of ownership. ~ Bryce Courtenay

There is no such thing as freedom, Justine. Only prison walls that forever change shape. ~ Carolyn Crane

I have that old sinking feeling. I've been overly available, sickeningly sweet and forever enabling all in the name of being 'liked.' I've compromised myself. I've suffered fools, idiots and dullards. I've gone on far too many dates with men because I felt guilty that they liked me more than I liked them. I've fallen deeply and madly I'm love with men I've never met just because I thought they looked 'deep.' I've built whole futures with men I hardly knew; I've planned weddings and named invisible children based on a side glance. I've made chemistry where there was none. I've forced intimacy while building higher Walls. I've been alone in a two year relationship. I've faked more orgasms than I can count while being comfortable with no affection at all.
I realise I have to make a decision right here and now. Do I go back to the sliver of a person I was before or do I, despite whatever bullshit happened tonight, hold on to this... This authenticity? If I go back to the the way I was before tonight, I'll have to compromise myself, follow rules with men who have none, hold my tongue, be quiet and laugh at shitty jokes. I have to never be challenged, yet be called challenging when I have an opinion or, really, speak at all. I'll never be torched by someone and get goosebumps again. I'll never be outside of myself. I'll never let go. I'll never lose myself. I'll never know what real love is - both for someone else and for me. I'll look back on this life and wish I could do it ~ Liza Palmer

And I must smile and dance with this man, and say nothing, for he holds the key to the prison my life has become. ~ Victoria Lamb

Daylight does not lend itself to terror: objects and people are plain to see; and we encounter there only those things which dare to show themselves in the glare of day. But night, opaque night denser than walls, night, empty and infinite and so black and fathomless that terrifying things reach out and touch us, night when we feel horror stirring, mysteriously prowling―night seemed to him to hide some unknown, imminent, threatening danger. What could it be? ~ Guy De Maupassant

The prose poem Walk The Red Road is great stuff and deserves to be read aloud. It compares quite favorably to The Walls Of Emerald by Li Chiang Yen, a Chinese poet of the late Tang period. ~ Brian Aldiss

To smash something is the ghetto's chronic need. Most of the time it is the members of the ghetto who smash each other, and themselves. But as long as the ghetto walls are standing there will always come a moment when these outlets do not work. ~ James Baldwin

Not celibate are they who wear monastic garb and shut themselves away behind thick walls and massive iron gates, But
celibate are they whose hearts and minds are celibate, whether they be in cloisters or in the public marts. ~ Mikhail Naimy

When they locked you up," Thorne said, "didn't they consider that this prison might have some security weaknesses?" "It didn't at the time. This hand is kind of a new addition." She ~ Marissa Meyer

What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? ~ Colson Whitehead

The illusion of freedom is just another sort of prison- ~ Lisa Mantchev

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people. ~ Huey Newton

Most of us are living in a prison of our fixed, false beliefs and never try to find the door to get out to see and feel the beauty of life, even when the door is wide open and welcoming. ~ Debasish Mridha

In order to escape from this prison, one must learn not to come to an arrangement with its indisputable comforts. ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila

You know, what makes the prison disappear is every deep, serious attachment. To be friends, to be brothers, to love; that opens the prison through sovereign power, through a most powerful spell. But he who doesn't have that remains in death. But where sympathy springs up again, life springs up again. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Until humans came and made anthills out of these mountains, Diwan Sahib was saying, looking up at the langurs, the land had belonged to these monkeys, and to barking deer, nilgai, tiger, barasingha, leopards, jackals, the great horned owl, and even to cheetahs and lions. The archaeology of the wilderness consisted of these lost animals, not of ruined walls, terracotta amulets, and potsherds. ~ Anuradha Roy

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious
for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity add a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. ~ Bertrand Russell

I came from Thailand for you, because Mia said she could probably get you here. I'd have come from Zimbabwe, Outer Mongolia, or a prison in Central America. In truth, I came through hell getting here ... because for me that's anywhere you're not. ~ Ava Gray

The fire illuminated the water lights in his eyes. I had to step back sometimes to marvel at how blessed I was. This beautiful young man sitting by the hearth, waiting for me to join him. When I looked at him looking at me, it felt like we were bouncing light off each other.
I was scared that I wasn't up to it, that I'd spill the light on the floor.. The best times were on the stairs in Daniel's apartment building. It was easiest when I wasn't actually in his apartment, but contemplating it from close by. Our love was most manageable when there was no immediate risk that I would wreck it. Often I was overwhelmed by what was happening between us. It made me almost nauseous, as if I'd eaten too much sugar, or was gambling with sums of money I didn't have. I recognized the same symptom in Ming. She couldn't control her excitement at my return if I'd been out all day, so she'd have to hide in a bag until it was safe to come out. Then she'd panic and ricochet all over the place, skidding into walls, banging her head against furniture. It was just too much for her, the onslaught of joy coupled with the threat of its imminent demise. I knew exactly how that felt. ~ Claire Kilroy

Our society spends a lot of money on prison bars. For the sake of our kids, let's invest in monkey bars. ~ Darell Hammond

I'm in my junior year but I can't take it anymore. The beige walls, the scent of linoleum and used lockers, the shrill bell between classes. High school is sucking the life out of me. ~ Diana Abu-Jaber

Marcelian Piaffus adored the heirloom's macabre biography, she could tell. Strangely enough, he had a disregard for its severity despite his beliefs, especially in the hands of a child, and even though Estefania had always been aware that darkness could latch itself onto objects, having grown up among unspeakable atrocities, she decided her daughter had too much grit to decline into madness. ~ Laura Gentile

I've only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I've only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a "serious" novel. ~ Roman Payne

Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a fresh wound he had only just received. But he was at home, and at home the very walls are a support. ~ Leo Tolstoy

In many respects, people on the outside suffered more than those of us in jail. In prison, we ate three times a day, we had clothing, we had free medical services, and we could sleep for 12 hours. ~ Nelson Mandela

I can't stop thinking about what Caroline said to Minna about death. It isn't an infection, she said. She might be right. Then again, we've nested in the walls like bacteria. We've taken over the house, its insulation and its plumbing - we've made it our own. Or maybe it's life that's the infection: a feverish dream, a hallucination of feelings. Death is purification, a cleaning, a cure. ~ Lauren Oliver

By sheer faith the walls of Jericho had fallen , after they were encompassed for about seven days, while,we weren't able to achieve the " so called " attainable freedom of mind ,within 7 prolonged months !

The question is , do we have the faith alive in us or alike everything tangible ,we lost it somewhere while creating a momentary deception amongst us ? ~ BinYamin Gulzar

Mountains. They stand at every view, like a mother offering a blanket in which to wrap everyday life and shelter it from useless. dreads. In june they are walls of white rhodendron blossom. In autumn the forests set themselves afflame with color. Even winter has its icy charms. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Nothing should be worth more to you than its value in helping you live your life. If you are willing to slough off the past, even at a loss, you are keeping yourself free, and your world continues to grow. If you insist on holding to some abstract valuation, you are being held hostage by that possession, and you are trapped in a prison of your own devising. ~ Kent Nerburn

Later that night, when we left the prayer room, we felt something in Upper Room shift. Couldn't explain it, something just felt different. We knew the walls of Upper Room like the walls of our own homes. We'd soft-stepped down hallways as the choir practiced, noticing that corner in front of the instrument closet where the paint had chipped, or the tile in the ladies' room that had been laid crooked. We'd spend decades studying the splotch that looked like an elephant's ear on the ceiling above the water fountain. And we knew the exact spot on the sanctuary carpet where Elise Turner had knelt the night before she killed herself. (The more spiritual of us even swore they could still see the indented curve from her knees.) Sometimes we joked that when we died, we'd all become part of these walls, pressed down flat like wallpaper. ~ Brit Bennett

Yes, Cabbage: prison diplomacy. It's called offering the newcomer a very warm welcome. You can tell Mares that I made lots of friends at two in the morning on the first night and continued making friends in the back of the laundry room and if I didn't make friends there they would shove me into an industrial tumble-dryer and spin me around a few times until I was dizzy enough to make lots of friends at the same time. ~ Jonathan Dunne

Hiding my half existence behind the opaque walls of my skull, concealing it like a shameful disease, I did not consider the simple fact that the same thing could be occurring under other skullcaps, in other locked rooms. ~ Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky