PRISON

Related Subjects: Crime, Justice, Persecution, Punishment, Retribution

1. Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion.—BLAKE, Proverbs of Hell
   

2. In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
   And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.—BURNS, Epistle from Esopus to Maria
   

3. As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw
   A solitary cell;
   And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint
   For improving his prisons in Hell.—COLERIDGE, The Devil's Thoughts
   

4. Away with him to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat.—DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby
   

5. Give us, in mercy, better homes when we're a-lying in our cradles; give us better food when we're a-working for our lives ; give us kinder laws to bring us back when we're a-going wrong; and don't set Jail, Jail, Jail afore us, everywhere
   we turn.—DICKENS, The Chimes
   

6. When thee builds a prison, thee had better build with the thought ever in thy mind that thee and thy children may occupy the cells.—ELIZABETH FRY, Report on Paris Prisons
   

7. The black flower of civilized society, a prison.—HAWTHORNE, The Scarlet Letter
   

8. Stone walls do not a prison make Nor iron bars a cage;
   Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage.—RICHARD LOVELACE, To Althea from Prison
   

9. Prison is a dreadful bore. But India is one vast prison.—JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

10. Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
    Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
    Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.—SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
    

11. Come, let's away to prison:
    We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage.—SHAKESPEARE, King Lear

12. There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.—SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure

13. Whilst we have prisons it matters little which of us occupies the cells.—BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists

14. The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.—BERNARD SHAW,
    Maxims for Revolutionists
    

15. I know not whether Laws be right,
    Or whether Laws be wrong;
    All that we know who lie in gaol
    Is that the wall is strong;
    And that each day is like a year,
    A year whose days are long.—OSCAR WILDE, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
    

16. This too I know—and wise it were
    If each could know the same—
    That every prison that men build
    Is built with bricks of shame,
    And bound with bars, lest Christ should see
    How men their brothers maim.—OSCAR WILDE, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
    

17. The vilest deeds like poison-weeds
    Bloom well in prison-air:
    It is only what is good in Man
    That wastes and withers there:
    Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate
    And the Warder is Despair.—OSCAR WILDE, The Ballad of Reading Gaol