Imprisoning Quotes & Sayings

Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality ... One can't possess reality, one can possess images
one can't possess the present but one can possess the past. — Susan Sontag

Some never escape from the imprisoning conviction that a cold or unattainable lover can be persuaded to become warm or attainable if they only discover the key. — Jeanne Safer

Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice. — Criss Jami

All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice's hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren't hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them. — Paolo Giordano

Over thirty of the fifty Outer Worlds, including my native Aurora, were directly colonized by Earthmen. Is colonization no longer possible?" "Well ... " "No answer? Let me suggest that if it is no longer possible, it is because of the development of City culture on Earth. Before the Cities, human life on Earth wasn't so specialized that they couldn't break loose and start all over on a raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever. — Isaac Asimov

Man's own form in space - his body - was a private prison; and that it was because of this imprisoning misery - because he was hungry and overworked and went to a horrid place called home late at night in the rain, and his bones ached and his head was heavy. — Willem De Kooning

Torturous screams bounced around in his head, whimpers and cries of pain and lust clouding his mind, overbearing and foreboding. Sinning surrounded him, suffocating him, imprisoning him like a straightjacket. He tried to drive the noise away, to force it back and focus on something else, but the ruckus never stopped, never let up. It hindered his connection to the world outside the gates, muffling everything else to mere background noise. Blah, blah, motherfucking blah. This was his Hell: the inescapable torment he endured all alone. He craved silence but was awarded chaos. Instead of light and vitality, he existed in utter darkness. His Archangel nature helped him take it all in stride, but it was never easy, even for the one the world saw as the enemy. Satan — J.M. Darhower

I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime? — Criss Jami

The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. — Ludwig Von Mises

For years I was so busy building walls I did not see I was imprisoning myself behind them, and did not recognize this pattern as being addiction. My addictive thinking and behavior became the bars of my cell. Denying feeling empty inside, I constantly looked for new things to acquire, people to be around, substances to take, and new goals to achieve in order to feel better about myself. Over the last four decades I have focused on healing my addictive mind and helping others do the same. — Lee L Jampolsky

Maybe it's just easier to hold onto resentment and bitterness.But when you hold onto them, you're imprisoning yourself, not the other person. Not forgiving is pretty heavy baggage to carry around. — Cathy Bryant

We wind up in cells of our own making when we're not generous, loving, compassionate, and forgiving. Without love we build dungeons in our hearts and fill them with our perceived enemies. We believe they deserve to be there for the harm they've caused us. But by imprisoning them we're destroying our own spirits. When our dungeons are overflowing with these prisoners we refuse to set free, we become slaves to our self-righteousness, our anger, resentments, and self-loathing, which we let multiply until we wind up imprisoned on our own death row. — Martin Sheen

The imprisoning scent of jasmine that always awakened in him a desire to flee. — Richard Flanagan

In general design and outline it looked the standard sort of tower for imprisoning princesses in; it was mainly used to store old furniture. However, — Terry Pratchett

The philosophers make still another objection: "What you gain in rigour," they say, "you lose in objectivity. You can rise toward your logical ideal only by cutting the bonds which attach you to reality. Your science is infallible, but it can only remain so by imprisoning itself in an ivory tower and renouncing all relation with the external world. From this seclusion it must go out when it would attempt the slightest application. — Henri Poincare

After a quarter of a century of personal experience and professional observation, I have come to understand that peace of mind is the true goal of the considered life. I know now that the sum of all other possessions does not necessarily add up to peace of mind; on the other hand, I have seen this inner tranquility flourish without the material supports of property or even the buttress of physical health. Peace of mind can transform a cottage into a spacious manor hall; the want of it can make a regal residence an imprisoning shell. — Joshua L. Liebman

Crystal spheres imprisoning green lizards, salamanders, millefiori bouquets dragonflies, a basket of pears, butterflies alighted on a frond of fern, swirls of pink and white and blue and white, shimmering like fireworks, cobras ready to strike, pretty little arrangements of pansies, magnificent poinsettias ... — Truman Capote

As Angelica opened up her eyes, she shuddered in fear at the massive animal that was holding her and fondling her body. I have been captured by a Bigfoot, she thought. The natives were right. There are Bigfoots in the jungles of Elysia. Her body stiffened as she tried to twist away and out of the imprisoning arms of the massive creature that was holding her capture. — Bella Swann

But the chain of circumstances linked up, imprisoning her, the victim of an illness that has no remedy because it has no reason. — Marcel Proust

We are particularly frustrated that so much of our politics today consists of lines first written during the clashes, domestic and foreign, of the 1960s. This "Groundhog Day" approach to replaying the culture war's tropes is perhaps nowhere in greater evidence than in how Americans talk about patriotism. Patriotism, as an idea, has been co-opted over the course of a generation by right-wingers who use the flag not as a symbol of transcendent national unity, but as a sectarian cudgel against the hippies, Francophiles, free-lovers and tree-huggers who constitute their caricature of the American left. The American left, for its part, has been so beaten down by this star-spangled caricature that it has largely ceded the very notion of patriotism to the right. As a result, the first reaction of far too many progressives to any talk of patriotism is automatic, allergic recoil. Needless to say, this reaction simply tightens the screws of the right's imprisoning caricature. — Eric Liu

The answer to my thoughts is the loud ripping of my shirt when he tears it straight down my back, yanking it forward around my shoulders and imprisoning my arms in the sleeves.
"I've got you now," he says, breaking the kiss and sounding like a god about to unleash wrath. — Poppet

In spite of muzzling the press, imprisoning thousands, and engaging in torture, kidnapping and murder, the Socialist government was still vulnerable to the accusation of being soft on Basques. — Mark Kurlansky

We are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. — Bernie Sanders

The 'crazy' thing about life is...
People keep 'imprisoning' themselves in the name of 'freedom'.. — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic because it is based on ideology and dogma. But spirituality is redeeming and universal. — Deepak Chopra

The little fellow had been about to feel himself a conqueror, and he found himself held within two imprisoning arms, impotent. The expression of joy, anxiety, and hope, which had interested me so much faded from his face and left on it the stupid expression of the child who knows that others will act for him. — Maria Montessori

You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance - to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea. — Mitch Albom

Experience is valuable only if it's imbued with meaning from which one can draw salient conclusions. Otherwise, experience becomes imprisoning. — Barry McCaffrey

Boy George has been charged with falsely imprisoning a man who'd gone to his apartment to pose for photographs. Going to Boy George's house to get your picture taken is like going to David Copperfield's island for a radio opportunity. — Chelsea Handler

Years of imprisoning and beheading writers never succeeded in shutting them out. However, placing them in the heart of a market and rewarding them with a lot of commercial success, has. — Arundhati Roy

Darkness/Imprisoning Me/All That I See/Absolute Horror/I Cannot Live/I Cannot Die/Trapped In Myself/Body My Holding Cell — Metallica

When we lock things away," he said with conviction, "we're really imprisoning ourselves. — Gordon Korman

China's critics rightly condemn the government for controlling public opinion in all sorts of ways, from imprisoning dissidents to censoring internet discussions. Yet the regime's obsession with control paradoxically means it pays close attention to public opinion. — Anonymous

I think it's time we recognized the Dark Ages are over. Galileo and Copernicus have been proven right. The world is in fact round; the Earth does revolve around the sun. I believe God gave us intellect to differentiate between imprisoning dogma and sound ethical science, which is what we must do here today. — Chris Shays

Anger, unlike fear or sadness, is a moral emotion. It is "righteous." It aims not only to end the current trespass but to repair any damage done. It also aims to prevent further trespass by disarming, imprisoning, emasculating, or killing the trespasser. — Martin E.P. Seligman

To whatever world He carries our souls when they shall pass out of these imprisoning bodies, in those worlds these souls of ours shall find themselves part of the same great temple; for it belongs not to this earth alone. — Phillips Brooks

I like to hide my camera and use a remote control, because then no one knows when I'm actually imprisoning their souls in the visual plane of thought or just sitting there, waiting, and then making time stop. The printed film is like a bell used to symbolize its hour. Except it stands for both that hour's and everything's sudden stopping. — Margaret Bourke-White

Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror — Alasdair MacIntyre

The problem with making a virtual world of oneself is akin to the problem with projecting ourselves onto a cyberworld: there's no end of virtual spaces in which to seek stimulation, but their very endlessness, the perpetual stimulation without satisfaction, becomes imprisoning. — Jonathan Franzen

In religion as in parenthood, uncritical loyalty to our ancestors may implicate us in an injustice against our descendants: imprisoning them in the errors of our ancestors. — Brian D. McLaren

Though here his voice faltered, because he knew as well as she did what came next, what words came next. If he could speak them, he might even convince her they were true, as his father had convinced his mother that Browning summer. It was the worst lie there was, imprisoning and ultimately embittering the hearer, playing upon her terrible need to believe. He could feel the I love you forming on his lips. Would he have said it if she hadn't interrupted? — Richard Russo

I am in love with Joshua Miles, and it's bringing me to life. It's killing me. It's making me crazy. I think I love that part, too. It twists and loops around us, tying us to one another. It steals my thoughts and makes me think of him. It steals my hands and makes me touch his skin. It's brutal and kind and sharp and soft and warm and cold and freeing and imprisoning. It's an incognito imposter taking over my world, spreading itself like a disease. — Karina Halle

A driving snow-storm in the night and still raging; five or six inches deep on a level at 7 A.M. All birds are turned into snowbirds. Trees and houses have put on the aspect of winter. The traveller's carriage wheels, the farmer's wagon, are converted into white disks of snow through which the spokes hardly appear. But it is good now to stay in the house and read and write. We do not now go wandering all abroad and dissipated, but the imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts. I can hear the clock tick as not in pleasant weather. My life is enriched. I love to hear the wind howl. I have a fancy for sitting with my book or paper in some mean and apparently unfavorable place, in the kitchen, for instance, where the work is going on, rather a little cold than comfortable. — Henry David Thoreau

The core concept in Griffin's writings about racism - that members of dominant groups tend to view minorities, because they seem different in some extrinsic way, as intrinsically other, and "as merely underdeveloped versions of their own imprisoning culture" - was intuited in Black Like Me and articulated in a seminal essay, "The Intrinsic Other — John Howard Griffin

So the idea is to triangulate a sufficiently large number of data points in your set of experience that you can make a model of the world that is not imprisoning. That's why, second to psychedelics, I think travel is the most boundary-dissolving, educational enterprise that you can get mixed up in. — Terence McKenna

Here we are to remember that in consequence of our opinion that labor is the Father and active principle of wealth, as lands are the Mother, that the state by killing, mutilating, or imprisoning their members do withal punish themselves. — William Petty

In his room, his hotel room. Not is his bed, his hotel bed. Bill paced and Bill paced. Bill thinking and Bill thinking. Bill knew failure could become habitual, defeat become routine. Routine and familiar. Familiar and accepted. Accepted and permanent. Permanent and imprisoning. Imprisoning and suffocating. Bill knew failure carried chains. Chains to bind you. You and your dreams. To bind you and your dreams alive. Bill know defeat carries spades. Spades to bury you. You and your hopes. To bury you and your hopes alive. Bill knew you had to fight against failure. With every bone in your body. Bill knew you had to struggle against defeat. With every drop of your blood. You had to fight against failure, you had to struggle against defeat. For your dreams and for your hopes. For you and for the people. To fight and to struggle. For the dreams of the people,
for the hopes of people. — David Peace

What really drives the battle against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment, but the widely held view that, first, we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs; second, drug and other criminal sentences are too long and harsh, and third, the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time. — John P. Walters

I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised. — Rene Descartes

To speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I will be told, there is no wish, no intention to anger him. I grant this; but it is just this absence of wish, this lack of interest, this indifference, this automatic manner of classifying him, imprisoning him, primitivizing him, decivilizing him, that makes him angry.
If a man who speaks pidgin to a man of color or an Arab does not see anything wrong or evil in such behavior, it is because he has never stopped to think. — Frantz Fanon

The pure, absolute quality and nature of each note in itself are only appreciated by the strummer. For some notes have all the sea in them, and some cathedral bells; others a woodland joyance and a smell of greenery; in some fauns dance to the merry reed, and even the grave centaurs peep out from their caves. Some bring moonlight, and some the deep crimson of a rose's heart; some are blue, some red, and others will tell of an army with silken standards and march-music. And throughout all the sequence of suggestion, up above the little white men leap and peep, and strive against the imprisoning wires; and all the big rosewood box hums as it were full of hiving bees. — Kenneth Grahame

Every time I go past a cinema and see a queue out the door, I think, look at those fools, every penny they spend is turned into profits that are used to pass laws imprisoning their own children. Can't they see? — Cory Doctorow

Lend and I certainly didn't start off on the right foot"-only Raquel would refer to Lend punching her and then us imprisoning him in an IPCA cell and interrogating him as being the "wrong foot"- "but he's always been good to you,and I have no doubt you two will be able to work this out. — Kiersten White

Suddenly I had to laugh. It was like realising you definitely need to projectile vomit when you thought you had it under control in some imprisoning form of public space. — Olivia Sudjic

I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence. — Bertrand Russell

Memory is useful because it gives us a sense of continuity. But memory is also imprisoning because it conditions us in predictable ways. — Deepak Chopra

Maybe that's the way of love. It doesn't wait to be invited in, and it won't be coerced. It gently creeps under your skin, a mild itch at first, not giving itself away in case you scratch it and cause an infection. But then it sinks in deeper, getting into your bloodstream. It travels. By the time it reaches your brain and you're aware of the infection, it's already taken over your heart. In Natalie's experience, love is anything but innocent. It's a captor, a guard, imprisoning you in the clutches of another, knitting the fabric of your own life to somebody else's, whether you like it or not. — Nigel Jay Cooper

The ego is definitely an advancement, but it can be compared to the bark of the tree in many ways. The bark of the tree is flexible, extremely vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree's contact with the outer world, the tree's interpreter, and to some degree the tree's companion. So should man's ego be. When man's ego turns instead into a shell, when instead of interpreting outside conditions it reacts too violently against them, then it hardens, becomes an imprisoning form that begins to snuff out important data, and to keep enlarging information from the inner self. The purpose of the ego is protective. It is also a device to enable the inner self to inhabit the physical plane. It is in other words a camouflage. It is the — Jane Roberts

Utilitarianism: If we Britiash were Utilitarians we would have to believe that imprisoning the innocent and torturing suspects was justified if the Home Secretary thought it a good thing for our peace of mind. — William Donaldson

Third, though oppression to the level of 'being thrown in jail' for one's Christian faith may not yet be apparent in the United States, history confirms that religious oppression in any given nation can be just the passage of a few laws away. Within six years of Adolph Hitler's selection as Germany's leader, the nation was imprisoning and killing its own people. — John Price

I'm going to hurt you, sweetheart, because there's no other way. If I could take the pain for you, I would."
She did not turn her face away from him or try to twist free of his imprisoning grasp, and what she said made Ian's throat ache with emotion. "Do you know," she whispered with a teary smile, "how long I've waited to hear you call me 'sweetheart' again?"
"How long?" he asked hoarsely.
Putting her arms around his shoulders, Elizabeth braced herself for whatever pain was coming, knowing as he tensed that it was going to happen, talking as if she could calm herself. "Two years. I've waited and w- — Judith McNaught

The semanticists are exactly wrong in regarding language as an obstruction or series of pitfalls. Language, on the contrary, appears as a great storehouse of universal memory, or it may be said to serve as a net, not imprisoning us but supporting us and aiding us to get at a meaning beyond present meaning through the very fact that it embodies others' experiences. — Richard M. Weaver

As regards the social apparatus of repression and coercion, the government, there cannot be any question of freedom. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. It is the recourse to violence or threat of violence in order to make all people obey the orders of the government, whether they like it or not. As far as the government's jurisdiction extends, there is coercion, not freedom. Government is a necessary institution, the means to make the social system of cooperation work smoothly without being disturbed by violent acts on the part of gangsters whether of domestic or of foreign origin. Government is not, as some people like to say, a necessary evil; it is not an evil, but a means, the only means available to make peaceful human coexistence possible. But it is the opposite of liberty. It is beating, imprisoning, hanging. Whatever a government does it is ultimately supported by the actions of armed constables. — Ludwig Von Mises