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

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

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

Stone, I. F.

A forest bird never wants a cage.

Ibsen, Henrik

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.

You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.

Malcolm X

Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.

Lincoln, Abraham

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

Lord Acton

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

Thomas Jefferson

10.

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.

11.

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)

12.

So free we seem, so fettered we are!

Browning, Robert

13.

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

14.

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

Pericles

15.

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

16.

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

Hoffer, Eric

17.

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Mencken, H. L.

18.

Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more.

Luther, Martin

19.

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

20.

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.

21.

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

Pound, Ezra

22.

Freedom is an internal achievement rather than an external adjustment.

Powell, Adam Clayton

23.

What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice.

Macleish, Archibald

24.

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

25.

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

Ehrenreich, Barbara

26.

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

Hamilton, Edith

27.

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

28.

How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

29.

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

Clinton, Bill

30.

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

James, William

31.

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

Sahib, The Siri Singh

32.

Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes his own prison.

Arnold, Sir Edwin

33.

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

Sieyes, Abbe

34.

Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions...

Hildebrand, Kenneth

35.

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

Sang Kyu Shin

36.

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Alan Dean Foster

37.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

38.

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Luxemburg, Rosa

39.

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

Rushdie, Salman

40.

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

Diderot, Denis

41.

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

Ruskin, John

42.

The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.

Kennedy, Robert F.

43.

We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

44.

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

45.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

William Hazlitt

46.

Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.

Horace

47.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

48.

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