Quotes about freedom

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

Freedom is only granted us that obedience may be more perfect.

— John Ruskin

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

— Bertrand Russell

Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom.

— Vita Sackville-West

There is no liberation without labor... and there is no freedom which is free.

— The Siri Singh Sahib

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

— Antoine De Saint-Exupery

It is quite possible for someone to choose incorrectly or to judge badly; but freedom must allow such mistakes.

— Sang Kyu Shin

A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.

— George Santayana

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Where there is much freedom there is much error.

— Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

Freedom exists only with power.

— Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male.

— Hazel Scott

He who is brave is free.

— Seneca

Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

— Seneca

The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.

— Eric Sevareid

They want to be free and they do not know how to be just.

— Abbe Sieyes

By the will art thou lost, by the will art thou found, by the will art thou free, captive, and bound.

— Angelus Silesius

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

— Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza

Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.

— Adlai E. Stevenson

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

— Adlai E. Stevenson

Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie.

— I. F. Stone

Bondage is... subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.

— W. Clement Stone

We gain freedom when we have paid the full price...

— Rabindranath Tagore

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.

— Rabindranath Tagore

We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.

— Terence

Freedom is knowing who you really are.

— Linda Thomson

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

— Henry David Thoreau

The secret of freedom, courage.

— Thucydides

This is America. You can do anything here.

— Robert E. Turner

The higher one climbs on the spiritual ladder, the more they will grant others their own freedom, and give less interference to another's state of consciousness.

— Paul Twitchell

The grass is always greener where the fence isn't.

— Source Unknown

The foolish and the uneducated have little use for freedom.

— Source Unknown

It is my right to be uncommon. For I do not choose to be a common man, If I can, I seek opportunity. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the government look after me. I choose to take the calculated risk, to dream, to build, to fail or succeed. I choose not to barter incentive for a dole, I prefer the challenges of life to a guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the state calm of Utopia. I will not trade my freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.

— Source Unknown

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.

— Source Unknown

A slave is a free man if he is content with his lot; a free man is a slave if he seeks more than that.

— Source Unknown

Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.

— Source Unknown

It is quite impossible to guarantee world peace. But is should be possible to guarantee world freedom.

— Source Unknown

Liberty is the right to choose, freedom is the result of that choice.

— Source Unknown

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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.

— Alice Walker

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

— George Washington

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

— George Washington

Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior.

— Walt Whitman

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.

— Robert Wilson

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

— William Wordsworth

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.

— Boris Yeltsin

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

— Yevgeny Yevtushenko

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

— Napoleon Bonaparte

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

— Noam Chomsky

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

— Barbara Ehrenreich

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.

— Edward M. Forster

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.

— Nadine Gordimer

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.

— Frank Hague

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.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Grace (Patricia) Kelly

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

— Søren Kierkegaard

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.

— Søren Kierkegaard

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.

— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

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

— Marshall Lumsden

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

— John Milton

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

— Eleanor Holmes Norton

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

— Georgia O'Keeffe

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

— Salman Rushdie

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

— Adlai E. Stevenson

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.

— Alexis De Tocqueville

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

— Voltaire

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

— George Washington

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.

— James Dye

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

— Virginia Woolf

There is no such thing as part freedom.

— Nelson Mandela

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

— Bryant McGill

You have the freedom to do anything, anytime, anywhere....... Just don't get anyone into your troubles....... Please !!!!!!!

— Mak Kazeronnie

The country has no future without Freedom and Justice.

— Mak Kazeronnie

If the freedom and justice are only owned by a few privileged persons, the whole nation will never have the real Freedom and Justice at all.

— Mak Kazeronnie

A hungry man is not a free man.

— Adlai E. Stevenson

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

— Adlai E. Stevenson

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

— Mark Twain

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

— Oliver Wendell Holmes