“In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it”
Regarding the Anglo-Irish Treaty during a parliamentary debate ( Dáil Éireann - Volume T - 19 December, 1921 (DEBATE ON TREATY) http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.T.192112190002.html)
Context: Now as one of the signatories of the document I naturally recommend its acceptance. I do not recommend it for more than it is. Equally I do not recommend it for less than it is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.
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Michael Collins (Irish leader) 9
Irish revolutionary leader 1890–1922Related quotes
Source: The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives
Source: Sceptical Essays
As quoted in NEA Journal : The Journal of the National Education Association Vol. 41 (1952) p. 300
Context: One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act too impulsively without thinking. I am not advocating in the slightest that we become mutes with our voices stilled because of fear of criticism of what we might say. That is moral cowardice. And moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. The importance of individual thinking to the preservation of our democracy and our freedom cannot be overemphasized. The broader sense of the concept of your role in the defense of democracy is that of the citizen doing his most for the preservation of democracy and peace by independent thinking, making that thinking articulate by translating it into action at the ballot boxes, in the forums, and in everyday life, and being constructive and positive in that thinking and articulation. The most precious thing that democracy gives to us is freedom. You and I cannot escape the fact that the ultimate responsibility for freedom is personal. Our freedoms today are not so much in danger because people are consciously trying to take them away from us as they are in danger because we forget to use them. Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves — not of the government.
Diary entry, (17 March 1981), translated from the original Irish, in Skylark Sing your Lonely Song : An Anthology of the Writings of Bobby Sands (1991)
Other writings
Diary entry, (17 March 1981), translated from the original Irish, in Skylark Sing your Lonely Song : An Anthology of the Writings of Bobby Sands (1991)
Other writings
Context: They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we'll see the rising of the moon.
“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness”
“Daring with my poem 'Special Pleading' to give myself such freedom as I desired, in my own style”
From Memorial by William Hayes Ward to The Poems of Sidney Lanier (ed. Mary D Lanier)
Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 117.
1870s
Context: [My sixth principle is that] the foreign policy of England should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations for the development of individual character; and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large.