Adelbert von Chamisso Quotes

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

No bird in a cage ever speaks. What is there to say? The sky is everywhere, churning above its head, blue and endless, calling out to it. But the caged bird can't answer anything except 'I cannot'.

I hate being immobile.

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.

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

I don't like any category; categories are not my favorite subject. They're too confining.

A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

She'd never have allowed herself to be held by anything as mundane as a few bars and a reinforced door

Tie two birds together. They will not be able to fly, even though they now have four wings.

My cage has many rooms.

Fences are made for those who cannot fly.

Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?

How can one not succumb and allow one's courage to fail when everything is shut tight, when all meaningful things are walled up, and when you constantly knock against bricks, as against the walls of a prison?

I'm a tulip in a cup. I stand no chance of growing up

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

He who is conceived in a cage yearns for the cage.

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

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

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.

Birds born in cages think that flying is a disease.

In my mind I'm a blind man doin' time.

I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn't know where to die.

I don't want to live like a prisoner.

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

In jail I was just like everybody else, I was sitting there praying, feeling caged.