FREEDOM QUOTES III
quotations about freedom
True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Stanzas on Freedom"
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
The Constitution of Liberty
Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
My Bondage and My Freedom
It is like living among snow-capped peaks with clouds wrapped around them and the sun and moon starkly shining over them... Aloneness becomes their companion, their spiritual consort, part of their being. Wherever they go they are alone, whatever they do they are alone. Whether they relate socially with friends or meditate alone ... aloneness is there all the time. That aloneness is freedom, fundamental freedom.
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA
The Myth of Freedom
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Out of My Later Years
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
JOHN DALBERG-ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly--until at last the darkness is no more.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
JAMES MADISON
speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, Jun. 6, 1788
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
MARTIN LUTHER KING
JR., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," 1963
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Conquest of Granada
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Strictly Personal
Man is born free and is everywhere in chains.
PETER CAREY
Parrot and Olivier in America
The human cry for freedom is like the wind, when it starts blowing people can sniff it. All the powers of the world are afraid of it. The powers can build prisons, grow armies, police and kill all they want. But the buildings will fall to sand, the armies will melt away while the breeze just keeps on blowing.
BILL CREWS
"Tiananmen's yearning for freedom lives on in Ashfield", The Sydney Morning Herald, June 4, 2019
Without total freedom, every perception, every objective regard, is twisted. It is only the man who is totally free who can look and understand immediately. Freedom implies really, doesn't it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely to empty the whole content of the mind--that is real freedom. Freedom is not mere revolt from circumstances, which again breeds other circumstances, other environmental influences, which enslave the mind. We are talking about a freedom that comes naturally, easily, unasked for, when the mind is capable of functioning at its highest level.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
On Freedom
Modern European and American history is centered around the effort to gain freedom from the political, economic, and spiritual shackles that have bound men. The battles for freedom where fought by the oppressed, those who wanted new liberties, against those who had privileges to defend. While a class was fighting for its own liberation from domination, it believed itself to be fighting for human freedom as such and thus was able to appeal to an ideal, to the longing for freedom rooted in all who are oppressed. In the long and virtually continuous battle for freedom, however, classes that were fighting against oppression at one stage sided with the enemies of freedom when victory was won and new privileges were to be defended.
ERICH FROMM
Escape from Freedom
Freedom is sometimes defined as a lack of resistance or restraint. A wheel turns freely if there is very little friction in the bearing, a horse breaks free from the post to which it has been tethered, a man frees himself from the branch on which he has been caught while climbing a tree. Physical restraint is an obvious condition, which seems particularly useful in defining freedom, but with respect to important issues, it is a metaphor and not a very good one. People are indeed controlled by fetters, handcuffs, strait jackets, and the walls of jails and concentration camps, but what may be called behavioral control--the restraint imposed by contingencies of reinforcement--is a very different thing.
BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER
Beyond Freedom & Dignity
God's work is freedom. Freedom is dear to his heart. He wishes to make man's will free, and at the same time wishes it to be pure, majestic, and holy.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Once a man has tasted freedom, he will never be content to be a slave.
WALT DISNEY
radio address, Mar. 1, 1941
The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure defense.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957
The more freedom you give people to do good, the more freedom they have to do bad as well.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow