Motivational Quotes

Freedom

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

- Adams, John

Best Quotes about Freedom

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

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

Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.

Lawana Blackwell

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

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

Pound, Ezra

It is true that liberty is precious. So precious that it must be rationed.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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

Clinton, Bill

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

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave. His fetters fall... freedom and slavery are mental states.

Gandhi, Mahatma

10.

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

Sahib, The Siri Singh

11.

The secret of freedom, courage.

Thucydides

12.

Only very slowly and late have men come to realize that unless freedom is universal it is only extended privilege.

Hill, Christopher

13.

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

Orr, Lord Boyd

14.

Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.

Greer, Germaine

15.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

King Jr. Martin Luther

16.

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

17.

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.

Pericles

18.

Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior.

Whitman, Walt

19.

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.

20.

Freedom is an internal achievement rather than an external adjustment.

Powell, Adam Clayton

21.

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Buck, Pearl S.

22.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

23.

Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

24.

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

25.

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

Cooley, Charles Horton

26.

No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.

Euripides

27.

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

Chomsky, Noam

28.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

29.

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

Sartre, Jean-Paul

30.

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.

Byron, Lord

31.

Freedom exists only with power.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

32.

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.

33.

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

Sang Kyu Shin

34.

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

Quayle, Dan

35.

The traveler has reached the end of the journey! In the freedom of the infinite he is free from all sorrows, the fetters that bound him are thrown away, and the burning fever of life is no more.

Dhammapada

36.

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

37.

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

Scott, Hazel

38.

There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

Kingsley, Charles

39.

Freedom Know this, that every man is free To choose his life and what he'll be. For this eternal truth is given, God will force no man to heaven. He'll call, persuade, direct aright, Bless with wisdom, love, and light; In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind.

Clegg, William C.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

O'Keeffe, Georgia

45.

For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.

Cary, Joyce

46.

Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

Epictetus

47.

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.

Baldwin, James

48.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

Epictetus

49.

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

Stone, I. F.

50.

Because you are in control of your life. Don't ever forget that. You are what you are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you have made.

Barbara Hall