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Freedom quotes

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“A conditioned mind is never a free mind.” Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“with freedom come responsibilities” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.” George Orwell, 1984

“Only free men can negotiate.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others

“I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

“The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.” John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women

“Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

“Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free.” Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

“For the unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.” John F. Kennedy, State of the Union Address

“This would be a hazardous life, and I would be apart from my family, but when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.” Franz Kafka, The Trial

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

“The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” Plato, The Republic

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” George Orwell, 1984

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

“The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.” Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address

“History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

“If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them.” Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty: or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.” Francis Bacon, The Essays of Francis Bacon

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America

“It's only after you've lost everything . . . that you're free to do anything.” Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.” William Shakespeare, Henry V

“Power and machinery, money and goods, are useful only as they set us free to live.” Henry Ford, My Life and Work

“There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.” Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

“Above all, the free man is superior to the man who has to serve another.” Franz Kafka, The Trial

“This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.” Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

“You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall. Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable demonstration of freedom.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of a man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign, and believe there, by the grace of God alone!” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History

“The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.” Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

“It has not been the path for the faint hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame, rather it has been the risk takers, the doers, the makers of things, some celebrated, but more often men and...” Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

“the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder.” Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only...” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” David Foster Wallace, This Is Water

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Related topics

democracy liberty oppression slavery peace action government equality happiness death responsibility independence choice life will power love God belief speech

Related authors

Thomas Jefferson (4)
Nelson Mandela (7)
John F. Kennedy (6)
George Orwell (4)
Barack Obama (4)
John Steinbeck (3)
Aristotle (2)
Thomas Paine (1)
Milton Friedman (10)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (6)
Ayn Rand (6)
William Shakespeare (5)
Mark Twain (4)
Chuck Palahniuk (4)
Ronald Reagan (4)
Alexis de Tocqueville (4)
Emma Goldman (4)
Henry David Thoreau (3)
John Stuart Mill (3)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (3)

Related sources

Democracy in America (4)
Capitalism and Freedom (10)
Measure for Measure (2)
State of the Union Address (11)
Inaugural Address (8)
Long Walk to Freedom (7)
The Social Contract (5)
The Fountainhead (4)
Anarchism and Other Essays (4)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (3)
The Subjection of Women (3)
1984 (3)
Civil Disobedience (2)
Tao of Jeet Kune Do (2)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2)
The Trial (2)
Fight Club (2)
Jane Eyre (2)
East of Eden (2)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (2)