quotations about freedom
For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Watch on the Rhine
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
They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
But still their Spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to Freedom.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero
Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.
EMIL CIORAN
History & Utopia
True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Stanzas on Freedom"
The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure defense.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957
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
I was a dweller amid shadows grim:
Till FREEDOM touched my yearning eyes, and lo!
Life in a shining circle, rounding rose,
As heaven on heaven goes up the jewell'd night.
New floods of passionate life swirl'd at my heart,
Like Ocean-surges rolling round the world:
And FREEDOM was my glittering Bride.
GERALD MASSEY
"To My Wife"
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The Social Contract
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
JOHN DALBERG-ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
Freedom to reject is the only freedom.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Without total freedom, every perception, every objective regard, is twisted. It is only the man who is totally free who can look and understand immediately. Freedom implies really, doesn't it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely to empty the whole content of the mind--that is real freedom. Freedom is not mere revolt from circumstances, which again breeds other circumstances, other environmental influences, which enslave the mind. We are talking about a freedom that comes naturally, easily, unasked for, when the mind is capable of functioning at its highest level.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
On Freedom
Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
Law
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
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Fight Club
The cause of Freedom is the cause of God!
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES
Edmund Burke
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
EDMUND BURKE
speech on conciliation with America, 1775
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
WILLIAM PITT
speech, Nov. 18, 1783
May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly--until at last the darkness is no more.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957