Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Freedom comes in two types: the freedom to act and the freedom from harm; the latter is now the only gift.
In plain terms
You traded action for safety, and safety is still valuable.
What can you take from it?
Being safe from harm is a form of freedom too.

Where it applies

  • political systems
  • social contracts
  • personal reflection

Putting it to work

  • evaluating trade-offs
  • defining rights

Questions to consider

  • What freedoms are you willing to give up?
  • Is safety worth the loss of agency?

Another view

It simplifies complex political realities into two distinct categories.

More from Margaret Atwood

  1. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

    Permalink to quote #3
  2. Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

    Permalink to quote #5
  3. We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played …

    Permalink to quote #2

Related quotes

  1. After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the…

    Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville quote #20
  2. You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor... Public opinion is a permeating influence, a…

    Walter BagehotWalter Bagehot quote #23
  3. The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - …

    Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky quote #58