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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” - 1975

“Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” - 1762

“with freedom come responsibilities” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.” John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women” - 1869

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” Abraham Lincoln, “Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others” - April 6, 1859

“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” - 1911

“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” - 1995

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“Only free men can negotiate.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.” Charlie Chaplin, “My Autobiography” - 1964

“I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“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” - 1910

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” - 1762

“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” - 1995

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” John F. Kennedy, “Inaugural Address” - 20 January 1961

“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” - 1849

“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.” Albert Camus, “The Plague” - 1947

“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” - 1932

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

“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” - 1597

“You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“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” - 16 October 1847

“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” - 1885

“The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power.” Milton Friedman, “Capitalism and Freedom” - 1962

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“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” - 1785

“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” - 2012

“For the unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.” John F. Kennedy, “State of the Union Address” - 14 January 1963

“Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.” William Shakespeare, “Henry V” - 1600

“Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.” Franz Kafka, “The Trial” - 1925

“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” - 1774

“It's only after you've lost everything . . . that you're free to do anything.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“Power and machinery, money and goods, are useful only as they set us free to live.” Henry Ford, “My Life and Work” - 1922

“After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature.” John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women” - 1869

“Above all, the free man is superior to the man who has to serve another.” Franz Kafka, “The Trial” - 1925

“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” - 25 January 1984

“This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.” Baruch Spinoza, “Ethics” - 1677

“He wants to show me that his love for me is not to interfere with his freedom.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“A mother, who is really a mother, is never free.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.” Milton Friedman, “Capitalism and Freedom” - 1962

“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“The Switzers are completely armed and quite free.” Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince” - 1532

“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” - 20 January 2009

“I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and...” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the...” Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities” - 1859

Related topics

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

Related authors

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

Related sources

State of the Union Address (11)
Capitalism and Freedom (10)
Inaugural Address (8)
Long Walk to Freedom (7)
The Social Contract (5)
The Fountainhead (4)
Democracy in America (4)
Anarchism and Other Essays (4)
1984 (3)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (3)
The Subjection of Women (3)
Measure for Measure (2)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2)
Jane Eyre (2)
Civil Disobedience (2)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (2)
Politics (2)
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (2)
The World as Will and Representation (2)
The Trial (2)