Motivational Quotes

Freedom

Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.

- Rousseau, Jean Jacques

Best Quotes about Freedom

Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

Adams, John

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

Silesius, Angelus

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others. But without freedom, no socialism either, except the socialism of the gallows.

Camus, Albert

Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Just as war is freedom's cost, disagreement is freedom's privilege.

Clinton, Bill

The foolish and the uneducated have little use for freedom.

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

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

Stone, I. F.

10.

Only law can give us freedom.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

12.

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 of them.

Mark Twain

13.

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.

14.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

Maugham, W. Somerset

15.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

16.

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

17.

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

Adler, Mortimer J.

18.

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

Chomsky, Noam

19.

I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.

Madonna

20.

He who is brave is free.

Seneca

21.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men... the rest love not freedom, but license.

Milton, John

22.

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.

23.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

Pascal, Blaise

24.

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

25.

You can only be free if I am free.

Darrow, Clarence

26.

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

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de)

27.

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

28.

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.

Patricia Sampson

29.

When we were told that by freedom we understood free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood. Wealth and economic well-being, we have asserted, are the fruits of freedom, while we should have been the first to know that this kind of happiness has been an unmixed blessing only in this country, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.

Arendt, Hannah

30.

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

Colton, Charles Caleb

31.

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

32.

A hot bath! I cry, as I sit down in it! Again as I lie flat, a hot bath! How exquisite a pleasure, how luxurious, fervid and flagrant a consolation for the rigors, the austerities, the renunciation of the day.

Macaulay, Rose

33.

Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.

George, David Lloyd

34.

Freedom is just chaos with better lighting.

Foster, Alan Dean

35.

Whatever the price, identify it now. What will you have to go through to get where you want to be? There is a price you can pay to be free of the situation once and for all. It may be a fantastic price or a tiny one -- but there is a price.

Browne, Harry

36.

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

Orwell, George

37.

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

Malcolm X

38.

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

39.

Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

40.

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

Voltaire

41.

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.

Malcolm X

42.

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

43.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too.

Maugham, W. Somerset

44.

So free we seem, so fettered we are!

Browning, Robert

45.

If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they will take sandwiches.

Orr, Lord Boyd

46.

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

47.

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