Psychological Captivity Quotes

Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.

Imprisonment of the body is bitter; imprisonment of the mind is worse

We are all prisoners of our thoughts.

In this case, the neurotic resembles a human being who looks up to God, commends himself to His ways, and then religiously awaits how the Lord will guide him; he is nailed to the cross of his fiction.

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.

We can never found the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched, even when we have everything we need in order to be happy.

The deep problem facing everyone is how to break free when being a prisoner is the only comfortable way you know how to live.

If you're going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it's well furnished.

The neurotic is nailed to the cross of his fiction.

This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.

It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.

The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison.

Many people are living in an emotional jail without realizing it.

Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.

Freedom and slavery are mental states.

I was initially just fascinated by the Branch Davidians. This doesn't really apply to Rachel Koresh because she was born into the church, and that was all she had ever known, but I was fascinated by the psychology of how people get to that place - a place like Mount Carmel and an FBI stand-off for 51 days.

Slaves do not always welcome their deliverers. They become accustomed to being slaves. They would rather gear those ills they have