quotations about freedom
Freedom all solace to man gives
He lives at ease who freely lives.
JOHN BARBOUR
The Bruce
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
attributed, The Rebirth of a Nation
It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1953
Freedom, we're gonna ring the bell
Freedom to rock, freedom to talk
Freedom, raise your fist and yell
ALICE COOPER
"Freedom"
Man is born free and is everywhere in chains.
PETER CAREY
Parrot and Olivier in America
The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will not cease to ring as long as man feels himself captive. As diverse as the cries for freedom may be, basically they all express one and the same thing: The intolerability of the rigidity of the organism and of the machine-like institutions which create a sharp conflict with the natural feelings for life. Not until there is a social order in which all cries for freedom subside will man have overcome his biological and social crippling, will he have attained genuine freedom.
WILHELM REICH
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
farewell address, Sep. 17, 1796
Once a man has tasted freedom, he will never be content to be a slave.
WALT DISNEY
radio address, Mar. 1, 1941
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
JAMES MADISON
speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, Jun. 6, 1788
Any existence deprived of freedom is a kind of death.
MICHEL AOUN
attributed, Dictionary of Quotations
For one to be free there must be at least two. Freedom signifies a social relation, an asymmetry of social conditions: essentially it implies social difference--it presumes and implies the presence of social division. Some can be free only in so far as there is a form of dependence they can aspire to escape.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
Freedom
Love of country follows from the exercise of its freedoms, not from pride in its fleets or its armies.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Them", Lapham's Quarterly: Foreigners, winter 2014
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Out of My Later Years
It is like living among snow-capped peaks with clouds wrapped around them and the sun and moon starkly shining over them... Aloneness becomes their companion, their spiritual consort, part of their being. Wherever they go they are alone, whatever they do they are alone. Whether they relate socially with friends or meditate alone ... aloneness is there all the time. That aloneness is freedom, fundamental freedom.
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA
The Myth of Freedom
The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Stanzas on Freedom"
We ... would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
speech, June 1941
The cause of Freedom is the cause of God!
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES
Edmund Burke
What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners