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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

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

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

“with freedom come responsibilities” 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

“Only free men can negotiate.” 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

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

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

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

“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

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

“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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

“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

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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

“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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.” Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.” Ayn Rand, Anthem

“My fellow citizens of the world... ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the Freedom of Man.” John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

“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

“Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the equal right of their neighbors to be free and live in peace, must work together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that peace, justice, and confidence may prevail...” Franklin D. Roosevelt, Quarantine Speech

“Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall” John Milton, Paradise Lost

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any...” John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

“I can’t stand the idea of being alone. I can’t bear the thought of being free.” Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

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Related topics

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

Related authors

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

Related sources

Democracy in America (4)
Capitalism and Freedom (10)
Long Walk to Freedom (7)
Measure for Measure (2)
State of the Union Address (11)
Inaugural Address (8)
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)
Jane Eyre (2)
The Trial (2)
Fight Club (2)
East of Eden (2)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (2)