Quotes about freedom

"It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere."

Voltaire on freedom
9 fans of this quote   

"Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting."

Voltaire on freedom   

"The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force."

Voltaire on freedom   

"For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged."

Walker, Alice on freedom
3 fans of this quote   

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

Washington, George on freedom   

"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."

Washington, George on freedom   

"Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior."

Whitman, Walt on freedom   

"The more internal freedom you achieve, the more you want: it is more fun to be happy than sad, more enjoyable to choose your own emotions than to have them inflicted on you by mechanical glandular processes, more pleasurable to solve your problems than to be stuck with them forever."

Wilson, Robert on freedom   

"How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold."

Wordsworth, William on freedom   

"It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts."

Yeltsin, Boris on freedom   

"He who is conceived in a cage, yearns for the cage."

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny on freedom   

"A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything."

Bonaparte, Napoleon on freedom
7 fans of this quote   

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Chomsky, Noam on freedom
8 fans of this quote   

"We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather."

Ehrenreich, Barbara on freedom   

"We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship."

Forster, Edward M. on freedom   

"The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars."

Gordimer, Nadine on freedom   

"We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, That man is a Red, that man is a Communist. You never heard a real American talk in that manner."

Hague, Frank on freedom   

"The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on freedom   

"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test."

Johnson, Samuel on freedom   

"The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it."

Kelly, Grace (Patricia) on freedom
3 fans of this quote   

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."

Kierkegaard, Søren on freedom
10 fans of this quote   

"How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech."

Kierkegaard, Søren on freedom
5 fans of this quote   

"When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the freedom of the press goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism."

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich on freedom   

"At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer."

Lumsden, Marshall on freedom   

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."

Milton, John on freedom   

"The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with."

Norton, Eleanor Holmes on freedom   

"Marks on paper are free -- free speech -- press -- pictures all go together I suppose."

O'Keeffe, Georgia on freedom   

"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."

Rushdie, Salman on freedom   

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them."

Tocqueville, Alexis De on freedom   

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Voltaire on freedom
14 fans of this quote   

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

Washington, George on freedom
11 fans of this quote   

"Truth equals our freedom. If we do not have it it appears to someone who even has a small glimpse of truth that we are not. "

Dye, James on freedom   

"To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves. "

Woolf, Virginia on freedom   

"There is no such thing as part freedom."

Mandela, Nelson on freedom   

"As free as you allow others to be, such freedom you create for yourself."

McGill, Bryant on freedom