Freedom Quotes

Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible.

~ Ludwig Von Mises

It is mental slavery to cling to things that have stopped serving it’s purpose in your life.

~ Chinonye J. Chidolue

I once had a mind of quicksand,That dragged ideas into its depths,Inhaling specks of sunlight,Every time I drew a breath,But the world thought me a hazard,When every word I spoke, I meant,So around me they put caution tape,And filled me with cement.

~ Erin Hanson

Reconciliation means that those who have been on the underside of history must see that there is a qualitative difference between repression and freedom. And for them, freedom translates into having a supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to school and to have accessible health care. I mean, what's the point of having made this transition if the quality of life of these people is not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless.'-archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee, 2001

~ Naomi Klein

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.

~ Epictetus

Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exult

~ Vera Nazarian

When a thing becomes indispensable it's time to give it up.

~ Marty Rubin

But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress.

~ Caitlin Moran

Selflessness is humility. ... humility and freedom go hand in hand. Only a humble person can be free.

~ Jeff Wilson

If ever it's necessary to ride the bandwagon, it's done with one leg swinging out and eyes scoping the fields.

~ Criss Jami

The world I held so closely, she played me like a game,I released and left her laughing to stand on my own two feet.

~ Coco J. Ginger

Music made her feel as if she were holding a lamp that cast a halo of light around her, and while she knew there were people and responsibilities in the darkness beyond it, she couldn't see them. The flame of what she felt when she played made her deliciously blind.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Now I'm dreaming, will I ever find you now?I walk in circles but I'll never figure outWhat I mean to you, do I belongI try to fight this but I know I'm not that strongAnd I feel so helpless hereWatch my eyes are filled with fearTell me do you feel the sameHold me in your arms againI need your loveI need your timeWhen everything's wrongYou make it rightI feel so highI come aliveI need to be free with you tonightI need your love

~ Ellie Goulding

For their lives, for their children's lives, they will give up what little freedom they had left.

~ Victoria Aveyard

When religious people take the stance that they don’t owe anyone that is hurting closure or answers then God is not winning. Conflict continues because of lack of communication, fear and indifference.

~ Shannon L. Alder

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith the

~ Robert H. Jackson

There is no freedom without bravery.

~ Ben Carson

Freedom and wildness, that which we were born into, is a grand mystery and miracle that creates a openness reserved not for barring us in but for keeping us out of cages. It is our ability to find the truth that has been a survival tool for our species both individually and corporately.

~ Leviak B. Kelly

Why would anyone want to live in a cage when we are free persons? This is the point to make, when we can rattle cages it means we are behind bars and are not free.

~ Leviak B. Kelly

This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.

~ Euripides

I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.

~ John Marsden

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

~ Michael J. Sandel

There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable from the original impulse that can only be described as sacred. Something in the person (dare we call it a soul?) wants to be free, and it seeks its freedom any way it can. ... There is a drive for transcendence that is implicit in even the most sensual of desires.

~ Mark Epstein

Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

~ Susan Sontag

At some point, one asks, Toward what end is my life lived? A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.

~ Diane Ackerman

It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely. In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.

~ Stephen R. Donaldson

In modern states, the citizen is politically impotent. A citizen, it is true, may complain, make suggestions, or cause disruptions, but in the ancient world these were privileges that belonged to any slave.

~ Mark Mirabello

It is not about knowing, but about living.

~ Victor Manuel Rivera

You are either free or not free

~ Malcolm X

For any human being, freedom is essential, crucial, to our dignity and our ability to be fully human.

~ Izzeldin Abuelaish

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.

~ Carl Schurz

Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet. It is our doing, but is it what you wanted? This sort of freedom?'Again I don't understand', Alyosha interrupted, 'Is he being ironic? Is he laughing?'Not in the least. He precisely lays it to his and his colleagues' credit that they have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Wings are a constraint that makes it possible to fly.

~ Robert Bringhurst

This “freedom” put a proud people in chainsAnd turned free men into slaves“Independence” made us weakAnd slaughtered usIn the name of kindnessThis is democracy by the whipAnd the fear of chainsWith a whirlwind at its core

~ Abdul Salam Zaeef

Perhaps he has confused making money with freedom.

~ John Charles Chasteen

The novel is the privileged vehicle of two ways of being: narrative and freedom: to be new (novel) in a speech open to all, and to be free in a speech that never concludes.

~ Carlos Fuentes

We sensible often resist intrusive love and its chaos practically, employing measures to prevent the former for fear of the latter. But for all our wit and work, that desperation for control also prevents the pure, transcendental freedom more often delivered by both.

~ Tiffany Madison

May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please but as the opportunity to do what is right.

~ Peter Marshall

Forgiveness is really just another word for freedom.

~ Julie Lessman