Selected freedom quotes

1. Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty! Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty: Love given willingly, full and free, Love for love's sake - as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please - just as he please.

2. Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

3. According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need?

4. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace.

5. Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.

6. The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

7. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

8. What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?

9. If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower.

10. In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.

11. It's in the private places of the heart that freedom is made or unmade by the discipline we create there.

12. There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.

13. The question isn't whether you have a good master or a bad master. It's to be your own master. That is the dignity of humanity.

14. How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb?

15. At the root of the assault on our liberties is, in fact, an assault on our character--an assault that assumes that we are not good enough to be free, and that aims to make sure that we are no longer strong enough, courageous enough, disciplined enough to be a free people.

16. We must reject dictatorship in whatever form it takes--and especially when it rears its head in our own midst on the bench.

17. We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.

18. A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.

19. Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.

20. No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.

21. The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.

22. We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

23. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

24. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

25. I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.

26. Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

27. Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

28. I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

29. Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

30. Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.

31. Remember, America: organization will set you free.

32. Now that I'm out and I'm shouting in doorways Freed from a love more like murder I should be singing but in liberation Feel like a ship with no rudder.

33. Art is what you can get away with.

34. Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

35. If freedom is to be saved and enlarged, poverty must be ended. There is no other solution.

36. Would that it were so! ... That the American military were targeting journalists.

37. He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

38. Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

39. What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

40. The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.

41. Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.

42. The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.

43. There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.

44. The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most important condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and stability. The current neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to maintain peace.

45. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.

46. The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.

47. The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.

48. My life is about my journey, and your life is about your journey. You are completely unqualified to draw my map, and I am completely unqualified to draw yours. I hope you'll let me know all about the path you've found, so that I may judge it for myself against my own path, and have the freedom to choose between the two. But please don't try and drag me from my path on to yours, and I will be sure to return the favor.

49. Thoughts, words, ideas and information, free from any bonds or restrictions, is the very concrete which pours out a foundation strong enough that upon which a house, stable and lasting, of true freedom and liberty may be built.

50. I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

51. There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

52. In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.

53. There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.

54. With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

55. It should not be an act of social disobedience to light a cigarette. Unless you're actually a doctor working at an incubator.

56. Security, for me, took a tumble not when I read that there were Communists in Hollywood but when I read your editorial in praise of loyalty testing and thought control. If a man is in health, he doesn't need to take anybody else's temperature to know where he is going.

57. If Nixon is not forced to turn over tapes of his conversations with the ring of men who were conversing on their violations of the law, then liberty will soon be dead in this nation.

58. Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.

59. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

60. Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

61. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

62. But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

63. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

64. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

65. The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

66. No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.

67. Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

68. Freedom begins between the ears.

69. If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.

70. The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think - that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it's not America.

71. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

72. Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.

73. I believe in salvation through economic, social, and spiritual freedom.

74. We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?

75. Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not. A poor family would undoubtedly rather have a decent apartment than a new TV, but since they are unlikely to get the apartment, what is to be gained by not getting the TV?

76. Only the educated are free.

77. Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

78. It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

79. Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

80. Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

81. Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay.

82. The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations.

83. There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.

84. To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

85. At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.

86. Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want.

87. There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

88. I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.

89. The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.

90. It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?... I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.

91. Though the Negroes are fed, clothed, and housed, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, the bare name of freemen-the lordship over his own person, the power to choose and will-are blessings beyond food, raiment, or shelter; possessing which, the want of every comfort of life is yet more tolerable than their fullest enjoyment without them.

92. We love the indomitable bellicose patriotism that sets you apart; we love the national pride that guides your muscularly courageous race; we love the potent individualism that doesn't prevent you from opening your arms to individualists of every land, whether libertarians or anarchists.

93. Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation.

94. Democracy is the opposite of totalitarianism, communism, fascism, or mobocracy.

95. Toleration and liberty are the foundations of a great republic.

96. There are questions we could not get past if we were not set free from them by our very nature.

97. You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

98. A person in a rented apartment must be able to lean out of his window and scrape off the masonry within arm's reach. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and paint everything outside within arm's reach. So that it will be visible from afar to everyone in the street that someone lives there who is different from the imprisoned, enslaved, standardised man who lives next door.

99. Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all.

100. The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.