quotations about freedom
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
They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
But still their Spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to Freedom.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero
It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
This is my right
A right given by God
To live a free life
To live in freedom
PAUL MCCARTNEY
"Freedom"
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
Saying that you reject socialism because you love freedom is like saying you reject chocolate because you hate bananas.
CHANA O'LEARY
North Country Now, March 8, 2019
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
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
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
The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will not cease to ring as long as man feels himself captive. As diverse as the cries for freedom may be, basically they all express one and the same thing: The intolerability of the rigidity of the organism and of the machine-like institutions which create a sharp conflict with the natural feelings for life. Not until there is a social order in which all cries for freedom subside will man have overcome his biological and social crippling, will he have attained genuine freedom.
WILHELM REICH
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
WILLIAM PITT
speech, Nov. 18, 1783
For one to be free there must be at least two. Freedom signifies a social relation, an asymmetry of social conditions: essentially it implies social difference--it presumes and implies the presence of social division. Some can be free only in so far as there is a form of dependence they can aspire to escape.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
Freedom
Can this be happiness, this terrifying freedom?
ALBERT CAMUS
Caligula
Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.
CHARLES LINDBERGH
attributed, Lindbergh
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Fight Club
Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.
EMIL CIORAN
History & Utopia
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
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Stanzas on Freedom"
Freedom all solace to man gives
He lives at ease who freely lives.
JOHN BARBOUR
The Bruce