The world is a prison. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

No love is foul, nor prison fair. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Oh, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes, never look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier! [ William Shakespeare ]

A bean in liberty is better than a comfit in prison. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

And the whole world would henceforth be a wider prison unto me. [ Byron ]

A prison is never narrow when the imagination can range in it at will.

Within yourselves deliverance must be sought: Each man his prison makes. [ Edwin Arnold ]

God keep me from four houses: a usurer's, a tavern, a spital, and a prison. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Dare to do something worthy of transportation and a prison, if you mean to be anybody. [ Juvenal ]

Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison. [ Amiel ]

Great towns are but a large sort of prison to the soul, like cages to birds or pounds to beasts. [ Charron ]

If I were not a king, I would be a university man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library (the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford). [ James I ]

When you take the wires of the cage apart, you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do you know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down? - that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life? [ Bishop Randolph S. Foster ]

The man who will share his purse with you in the days of misfortune and distress, and like the good Samaritan, be surety for your support to the landlord, you may admit to your confidence, incorporate into the very core of your heart, and call him friend; misfortunes cannot shake him from you; a prison will not conceal you from his sight. [ J. Bartlett ]

The little flower which sprung up through the hard pavement of poor Picciola's prison was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here amid rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature. And O, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ Chapin ]

The little flower which sprung up through the hard payment of poor Picciola's prison, was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here, amid the rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature; and oh, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ E. H. Chapin ]