Prison Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

11 Prison Quotes
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“And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.”
Bible Quotes
Source: Ezekiel (ch. X, v. 10)
“In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.”
Robert Burns Quotes
Source: Epistle from Esopus to Maria, in Chambers' "Burns' Life and Work", vol. IV, p. 54
“Whene'er with haggard eyes I view This dungeon that I'm rotting in, I think of those companions true Who studied with me at the U- Niversity of Gottingen. - George Canning, Song--Of One Eleven Years in Prison,”
George Canning Quotes
Source: Song--Of One Eleven Years in Prison, found in "The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin"
“Prison'd in a parlour snug and small, Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall.”
William Cowper Quotes
Source: Retirement (l. 493)
“"And a bird-cage, sir," said Sam. "Veels vithin veels, a prison in a prison."”
Charles Dickens Quotes
Source: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (ch. XL)
“In durance vile.”
William Kendrick Quotes
Source: Falstaff's Wedding (act I, sc. 2)
“That which the world miscalls a jail, A private closet is to me. . . . . Locks, bars, and solitude together met, Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.”
William Kendrick Quotes
Source: Falstaff's Wedding (act I, sc. 2)
“Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage.”
Richard Lovelace Quotes
Source: To Althea, from Prison (IV)
“Fast closed with double grills And triple gates--the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone. [Fr., Doubles grilles a gros cloux, Triples portes, forts verroux, Aux ames vraiment mechantes Vous representez l'enfer; Mais aux ames innocentes Vous n'etes que du bois, des pierres, du fer.]”
Paul Pelisson (Peleisson) Fontanier Quotes
Source: Written on the walls of his cell in the Bastile, about 1661
“Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: Julius Caesar (Cassius at I, iii)
“I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.”
William Shakespeare Quotes
Source: The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (King Richard at V, v)