Richard Lovelace Quotes

I'm like a caged animal sometimes. Let me yearn to breathe free.

Of what use were wings to a man fast bound in chains of iron?

During the period of house arrest, I had an electronic manacle around my leg for 24 hours a day, and for someone who has tried to give others liberty all their adult life, that is absolutely intolerable.

They weren't crazy. They were tired of being locked up. Even I could see that.

It's difficult to put into words what freedom feels like. You only know what freedom feels like if you know what it feels like to not be free.

Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

300 was the biggest hurdle. They tried to hold us against our will.

We're all in prison. All of us are in prison, but some of us have a key.

I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, 'What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?' and gave the obvious answer: jailers.

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 the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

Hee is not free that drawes his chaine.

Fetters of gold are still fetters, and the softest lining can never make them so easy as liberty.

No good ever comes from putting up walls. What people mistake for safety is in fact captivity. And few things thrive in captivity.

I have never in my life walked with a harness. The weight of the tether, makes it feel like I'm dragging an anchor behind me.

I've come out of a small jail and entered a bigger one.

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

I don't want to live like a prisoner.

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.

You might as well expect rivers to run backwards as any man born free to be contented penned up.

So I departed and was free from imprisonment.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

Man is everywhere still in chains.

It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free.