Prison Quotes

1427 Prison quotes by 949 unique authors

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky. — Oscar Wilde
Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes hiw own prison. — Edwin Arnold
All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away. — Barbara Deming
Already this war on gangs in California is taking money from universities to build prisons, and the universities have some clout. — Tom Hayden
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously. — Mills Lane
More than 90 percent of all the prisoners in our American prisons have been abused as children. — John Powell
Vices are not crimes. — Lysander Spooner
I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law,… — Jerome Lawrence
I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn't know where to die. — Antonio Gramsci
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses. — Bertrand Russell
There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where… — Upton Sinclair
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries. — Edmund Burke
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere. — Mahatma Gandhi
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted. — Seneca the Younger
No crime has been without a precedent. — Seneca the Younger
While crime is punished it yet increases. — Seneca the Younger
Nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. — Abraham Lincoln
Imprisonment is as irrevocable as death. — George Bernard Shaw
Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one… — George Bernard Shaw
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells. — George Bernard Shaw
Now it is one thing to say I say it that people shouldn't consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws,… — William F. Buckley, Jr.
Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them. All are slaves and equal in their… — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only "order" that governments have ever… — Emma Goldman
The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet how can anyone speak of it… — Emma Goldman
The prison guards are capable of committing daily atrocities and obscenities, smiling the smile of the angels all the while. — Jean Harris

Who Wrote These Prison Quotes

949 authors contributed a total of 1,427 Prison Quotes, led by these top contributors: