Top 1200 Political Prisoners Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

We are all prisoners of the ideas of the times we live in.

We're not prisoners of the past.

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

All this [Soviet labor camp for political prisoners] brings about one marked change in your physical appearance; by the end of your first year, you will have what are known as 'zek's eyes.' The look in a zek's eyes is impossible to describe, but once encountered, it is never forgotten. When you emerge, your friends, embracing you, will exclaim: 'Your eyes! Your eyes have changed!' And not one of your tormentors will be able to bear your scrutiny. They will turn away from it, like beaten dogs.

In the 00s, it was often claimed that political apathy had replaced political participation. Membership of political parties and electoral turnout were both said to be in irreversible decline.

The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.

I have always had a deep belief that every movie, every artistic expression, is political. Don't be fooled. Even ones that we wouldn't consider overtly political are political. When we spend time doing anything, whether it's distraction or whether it's something that we have to face, it is always political. That's my belief.

It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of political folly.

The curiosity to see the prisoners appears to be unabated.

Those who build walls are their own prisoners.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

A political conception covers the right to vote, the political virtues, and the good of political life, but it doesn't intend to cover anything else.

Hatred is not contained in political thinking. Any hatred worked up against the public enemy is non-political, and always shows some weakness in the internal political situation.

I'm very political. I'm not political in public; I'm political at home.

Most of the prisoners told the interpreter that they are from Mandingo.

As soon as I got out of jail, as soon as my trial was over, first of all, during the time I was in jail, there was an organization called the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, and I insisted that it be called National United Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners.

If the Bank of Canada does want to start getting more and more political, then it will be held to the same level of political accountability as other political entities.

Whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.

Prejudice makes prisoners of both the hated and the hater.

People who consider themselves political, who follow political developments most rigorously, are often those who view the political process with the greatest lack of perspective.

Majorities are of two sorts: (1) communal majority and (2) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to a political majority is open. The door to a communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of communal majority are made by its own members born in it.

People just don't know what civilian prisoners of war are.

I'm not a political person. I usually beware of political persons. I know many, but I'm not one of them. I have no political ambitions.

Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace. But it's a small link. There are lots of other issues: apartheid , vivisection, political prisoners, the arms race. There's so much going on in this world today, so much ignorance among people. That's not to say I'm not standing amongst everybody. But the point is, what can we do now? That's the thing about vegetarianism; it's an individual's decision and it's something you have control over. How many things do we really have control over?

Every time we sign a treaty with another country, the treaty (should) include prisoner transfer provisions.... Under these provisions, the country in which the crimes were committed could demand that the convicts' country of origin incarcerate the prisoners for the terms to which they were sentenced.... Foreign felons in U.S. prisons are exacerbating out budget and law enforcement problems.... We will never get countries to take back their prisoners unless we have some leverage. NAFTA gives us that opportunity.

There are people with an explicit political bent complaining about people having political agendas while nominating stories with political agendas. Is it political to try to be diverse? Is it political to try to imagine a non-heteronormative society? Yes, because it involves politics. But how do they expect us to not write about our lives?

We are all prisoners of our time and place.

To revolt within society in order to make it a little better, to bring about certain reforms, is like the revolt of prisoners to improve their life within the prison walls; and such revolt is no revolt at all, it is just mutiny. Do you see the difference? Revolt within society is like the mutiny of prisoners who want better food, better treatment within the prison; but revolt born of understanding is an individual breaking away from society, and that is creative revolution.

The sacrifices of our people were very great. Out of a population of one million, 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were made political prisoners in Italy and Germany, and 35,000 made to do forced labour, of ground; all the communications, all the ports, mines and electric power installations were destroyed, our agriculture and livestock were plundered, and our entire national economy was wrecked.

If we go to Chihuahua we must be considered as prisoners of war?

You can judge the moral bearing of a political system, a political institution, a political man by the degree of danger they attach to the fact of being observed through the eyes of a satiric poet.

We are the prisoners of ideas.

I mean, putting women in the center of a movie and not talking about men, that's already political, right? And you know, political doesn't mean that it sends this message or that is has a statement. It's also political in its aesthetic project.

The Germans are prisoners of their past.

We are the prisoners of history. Or are we?

Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defence?

... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice.

It is not the prisoners who need reformation, it is the prisons.

The unhappy are prisoners of a single round of thought.

I'm a sort of political person, and I feel that there's a kind of ineradicably political dimension to theater, to all theater, whether it's overtly political or not.

The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power.

When it comes to the cause of justice, I take no prisoners and I don't believe in compromise.

We are prisoners of our own metaphors, metaphorically speaking.

Within our own society, we jail more prisoners than any other country in the world, 85 percent of them people of nonwhite races — red, black, brown, and yellow. We are one of the few nations that still indulge in the death penalty for increasing numbers of these prisoners. We must become mindful of these negative things, since we need not support these actions of our nation to be affected negatively by their evolutionary impact, unless we mentally, verbally, and ultimately physically, disassociate ourselves from them.

With Pussy Riot - this was a prank! It was a brilliant, artistically gifted prank. But they didn't expect to go to prison! They were college girls who became political prisoners for two years. That makes them very similar to the people who were "just going to a protest one day" and got arrested. They had no idea they were risking the rest of their lives. Because you're never the same after you've spent two years in a gulag.

I'm very political without being political. I don't know how to speak proper political language.

We are all prisoners of our thoughts.

Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion.

Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform to.

I am of the opinion that I am not a political writer, and, moreover, that as far as true literature is concerned, there actually are no political writers. I think that my writing is no more political than ancient Greek theatre. I would have become the writer I am in any political regime.

Yes. And release prisoners who are incarcerated for pot.

One political party must behave goodly with another political party, whatever is possible within the political jurisdiction.

I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted.

High-level political wives are by no means new. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when patricians dominated British political life, it was common for politicians' spouses to play an active political role.

Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.

When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have 2-3 million prisoners: 743 people per 100,000 in the population. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. As Senator Jim Webb once put it, Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different and vastly counterproductive.

I think everybody's political. The act of being alive is political. Unless you choose to be a hermit, you're automatically political because you're part of a community.

Now the good of political life is a great political good. It is not a secular good specified by a comprehensive doctrine like those of Kant or Mill. You could characterize this political good as the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another: the duty to give citizens public reasons for one's political actions.

Singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' all the places we've been, it takes on a different meaning everywhere. When you sing the line, 'How many years can a people exist, before they're allowed to be free?' in a prison yard for political prisoners in El Salvador; if you have sung it to a group of union organizers, who have all been in jail, in South Korea; if you've sung to Jews in the Soviet Union who have been refused exit visas; if you've sung it with Bishop Tutu protesting apartheid, the song breathes, it lives, it has a contemporary currency.

The curiosity to see the prisoners appears to be unabated