Free person

“ That any person should be dependent for the means of support upon another would be shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory. What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an arrangement? I am aware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. ”

“ that the question was, whether, if the reformers of society and government could succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were free and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures. ”

“ What is the freedom of the most free? ”

“ Let the people show they are worthy to be free by practising the virtues of freemen—by a reliance on the power of reason, on the march of intelligence, on the force of public opinion, on the justice of their cause, and the certain triumph of truth and right, naked and unarmed, except in the panoply of virtue and the majestic spirit of humanity. ”

“ Lastly, we may ask: To what purpose is our free-will given us, if all souls, good and bad alike, users and abusers of the liberty they had on earth, enter into their long home all of one uniform and spotless hue? ”

“ It is so good for you to have freedom of choice; it forms your character—your individuality! If you take the wrong cup or the wrong berry, you will die before the day is over, but you will have acquired the dignity of a Free child? ”

“ It is not enough that one should desire to be free—one must know how to be free. I shall speak briefly, for after the success of our deliberations, I await with confidence the spirit and action of this Assembly. ”

“ Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself—and i will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. ”

“ I would, sometimes, say to them, while seated on a curb stone or a cellar door, "I wish I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men." "You will be free, you know, as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a slave for life. ”

“ I would promise you to make a response in writing, had not experience taught me that business will not allow me to do so. I can only say now, as I have often said before, it has always been a sentiment with me that all mankind should be free. ”

“ Or have we not—it is a more serious question—exchanged dependence upon the great for dependence upon the public, rather than learnt to stand upon our own feet? Have we made ourselves, and, if we have not, how can we make ourselves, worthy of our position as free men? ”

“ The next instant he remembered again, with a throb of exhilaration that he was free. By her own act she had given him back his freedom—she had returned him to his life and to his work. As for her if she chose to fall back into her old bondage, who was there in heaven or on earth that could hold him to account? Every law that had been made by man since the beginning of law was upon his side; and every law declared to him that he was free. Free! The word went like the intoxication of joy to his head; then, even while the exhilaration lasted, he shivered and came abruptly to a halt. ”

“ We have not yet seen how a free people exercises its freedom. We have not seen in real life the practical application of the principles which we preach. Here all is spread before our gaze in a vast tableau. ”

“ I am neither a student nor a philosopher, but I would like some convinced exponent of the doctrine of Free Will to explain how we are anything but the helpless victims of the consequences of the acts of other people. ”

“ What is it [to] be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? ”

“ Force of character, freedom from the prejudices of conventional custom, conventional religion or conventional government—these are what distinguish the true freeman, the man free in soul, from the slave. ”

“ In basing responsibility and praise and blameworthiness upon this liberty, an appeal is made to the common ideas, feelings, and practices of men. Every man regards himself as free when he does as he pleases,—when, if he pleases to walk, he walks,—when, if he pleases to sit down, he sits down, &c. ”

“ Now to my mind, that is the image of human liberty; the individual is free in proportion to his perfect accommodation to the whole, or to put it the other way, in proportion to the perfect adjustment of the whole to his life and interests. ”

“ And by free I mean each having the right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights or with the happiness of another. I want to see the time when we live for this world and when all shall endeavor to increase, by education, by reason, and by persuasion, the sum of human happiness. ”

“ Rich or poor, I shall be free. I shall be free not merely in this country or in that; I shall be free in any part of the world. All the chains of prejudice are broken; as far as I am concerned I know only the bonds of necessity. ”

“ So, to reduce our moral judgments, confusion and all, to small compass, we are free, others are not; they are free, we are not; and our freedom is bound by duty, by duty to the moral law, while their freedom, unless a hopeless lawlessness, is bound by the environment and its law. Again, good and evil are each unmixed, and moral acts serve two masters—that is to say, spring from two sources. ”

“ To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things -- this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. ”

“ A free people is one in which the essential energies of all effectuate themselves unhindered, the life of each swelling the surrounding tide of life, and being enriched in turn by the returning tide. This to my mind is liberty,—the liberation of what is best in each. This is freedom,—the free flow of life into life. ”

“ Then do you not think that the truly righteous man, be he in prison or out, is free? Do you not see that a man who does right, even though he lose fortune or life by doing so, is freer than the one who allows his conduct to be regulated by fear, malice, or other passions? Remember that a man may be free in a dungeon and bound down with chains, and that he may be an abject slave and be clothed in purple. ”

“ When you speak to us plainly, you have to say that you really understand a man to be free, and free in no other sense than a falling stone, or than running water. In the one case there is as little necessity as in the other, and just as much freedom. ”

“ Rather, it is the other way: we can love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of Him "whose service is perfect freedom." ”

“ What will they think, who expect to hear from our shores the divine message that man is capable of governing himself, and, being free, capable of respecting the freedom of others? To them another spark of light extinguished, another ray of hope obscured, another bond of sympathy severed. ”

“ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and equal, and are endowed, by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ Now they seemed unearthly, without any stain of human desire, without any worldly tarnish. He must be free. The latitude of his life must be unbounded by any human law, otherwise he would never attain. ”

“ That my liberty depends on you being free, too. ”

“ To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the world as a free people, it is sufficient, and alone sufficient, that it appear to reasonable minds that they are in good and evil very much like the rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the same degree with the conservative and progressive elements of character common to ordinary humanity. ”

“ The first sophism consists in asking ourselves if there is such a thing as duty in the abstract, or if this word does not cover one of the numerous illusions of our forefathers. For duty, in truth, supposes liberty, and the question of liberty leads us into metaphysics. How can we talk of liberty so long as this grave problem of free-will is not solved? ”

“ When we have made that discovery, and are steadily acting upon it, we are free indeed, and with this new liberty there grows a clear sense and conviction of a wise, loving Power which, while leaving us our own free will, is always tenderly guiding us. ”

“ Your individuality was given you by God, and in your race, and if you have any to speak of, you will want no liberty. You will want a den to work in, and peace, and light—no more,—in absolute need; if more, in anywise, it will still not be liberty, but direction, instruction, reproof, and sympathy. But if you have no individuality, if there is no true character nor true desire in you, then you will indeed want to be free. You will begin early, and, as a boy, desire to be a man; and, as a man, think yourself as good as every other. ”

“ Here, it will be seen, that liberty, according to this notion of it, has no relation to the manner in which the will arises, or comes into existence; if one's external conduct can only follow his will, he is free. ”

“ and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere could be free. ”

“ I know a thrall, and he is his master's every hour, and never his own; and a villein I know, and whiles he is his own and whiles his lord's; and I know a free man, and he is his own always; but how shall he be his own if he have nought whereby to make his livelihood? Or shall he be a thief and take from others? Then is he an outlaw. Wonderful is this thou tellest of a free man with nought whereby to live!"
"Yet so it shall be," said I, "and by such free men shall all wares be made." ”

“ Thus there are two freedoms—the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. ”

“ WHETHER MAN’S WILL BE FREE OR NO? For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the question itself is altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask whether man’s WILL be free, as to ask whether his sleep be swift, or his virtue square: liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness to virtue. ”

“ Indeed, the first point we have all to determine is not how free we are, but what kind of creatures we are. It is of small importance to any of us whether we get liberty; but of the greatest that we deserve it. ”

“ How far, and in what sense, can action which is determined by motives be said to be free? For a long time the advocates of free-will, in their eagerness to preserve moral responsibility, went so far as to deny all motives as influencing moral action. ”

“ But before we enter upon our task, it is necessary to begin with a statement as to the real meaning of ethical freedom itself. Until we know what we mean by the kind of freedom we, as moral beings, desire and think we ought to have, it will be useless to ask whether we are or are not free. ”

“ From this he concluded,—and acted on that conclusion—that all men are created free and equal, and that the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. ”

“ The truth is, All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. ”

“ This girl conceived freedom just as a Developed Ego would conceive it, as an order of things in which she should be "free," while everyone else, going on as usual, sacrificed and denied to uphold her comfort and support her illimitable selfishness. ”

“ That which tends to the misery of man.
What you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing whatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and liberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of his choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation—we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us the nature of things does not seem to be a master—Nature has no will. ”