Motivational Quotes

Freedom

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, S°ren

Best Quotes about Freedom

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

Ruskin, John

What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Chomsky, Noam

Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it.

Hubbard, Elbert

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Mencken, H. L.

What we want is not freedom but its appearances. It is for these simulacra that man has always striven. And since freedom, as has been said, is no more than a sensation, what difference is there between being free and believing ourselves free?

Cioran, E. M.

When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire... or preserve his freedom.

Malcolm X

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Augustine, St.

Where there is much freedom there is much error.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

10.

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

Voltaire

11.

As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats.

Baudrillard, Jean

12.

The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.

Hegel, Georg

13.

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.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

14.

Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases?

Persius

15.

If we catch a glimpse of freedom, we wish to possess it; if we catch a glimpse of death, we want nothing to do with it. One we cannot have, the other we cannot avoid.

Johnson, Jeremy P.

16.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

Orwell, George

17.

Only law can give us freedom.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally being lived. They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.

Covey, Stephen R.

19.

Freedom is an internal achievement rather than an external adjustment.

Powell, Adam Clayton

20.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

Dyer, Wayne

21.

Who then is free? The one who wisely is lord of themselves, who neither poverty, death or captivity terrify, who is strong to resist his appetites and shun honors, and is complete in themselves smooth and round like a globe.

Horace

22.

A hungry man is not a free man.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

23.

Until economic freedom is attained for everybody, there can be no real freedom for anybody.

La Follette, Suzanne

24.

The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.

Blum, Leon

25.

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

26.

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.

Buscaglia, Leo

27.

He who is brave is free.

Seneca

28.

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

Hoffer, Eric

29.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

30.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

Maistre, Joseph De

31.

To be what no one ever was, to be what everyone has been: Freedom is the mean of those extremes that fence all effort in.

Doren, Mark Van

32.

He who dares not (reason), is a slave.

Drummond, William

33.

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

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny

34.

Set me free from evil passions, and heal my heart of all inordinate affections; that being inwardly cured and thoroughly cleansed, I may be made fit to love, courageous to suffer, steady to persevere.

Kempis, Thomas

35.

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.

Malcolm X

36.

When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?

Levenson, Samuel

37.

Freedom is hunting, feeding, danger; that, that is freedom --that it is which makes the veins to swell, the breast to heave and glowaye,that is freedom, --that is pleasure --life!

Lovell, Marie

38.

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

39.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy -- but that could change.

Quayle, Dan

40.

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

Voltaire

41.

Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

Aristotle

42.

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Baruch, Bernard M.

43.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Reagan, Ronald

44.

There are always risks in freedom. The only risk in bondage is breaking free.

Bellin, Gita

45.

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.

Barton, Bruce

46.

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

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

48.

Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.

James, William

49.

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

50.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt