“Freedom is participation in power.”

—  Marcus Tullius Cicero

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Freedom is participation in power." by Marcus Tullius Cicero?
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BC

Related quotes

John R. Commons photo

“Liberty is absence of restraint. Freedom is participation in government.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 111

Ai Weiwei photo

“If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Solway, Diane. “Enforced Disappearance.” W Magazine, November 2011.
2010-, 2011

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Not pleasure, not glory, not power: freedom, only freedom.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 62
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Não o prazer, não a glória, não o poder: a liberdade, unicamente a liberdade.

Andrzej Majewski photo

“A slave dreams of freedom, a free man dreams of wealth, the wealthy dream of power, and the powerful dream of freedom.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Niewolnik marzy o wolności, człowiek wolny o bogactwie, bogacz o władzy, a władca o wolności.
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

Edmund Burke photo

“Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

Rudolf Karl Bultmann photo

“Freedom from the world is, in principle, not asceticism, but rather a distance from the world for which all participation in things worldly takes place in the attitude of “as if not.””

Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884–1976) German theologian

1 Cor. 7:29-31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+7%3A29-31&amp;version=KJV <br class="br">Source: New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1941), p. 18

“If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Rudolph Rummel photo

“The less freedom people have the more violence, the more freedom the less violence. I put this here as the Power Principle: power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. xvi

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Freedom and power bring responsibility.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

A Tryst With Destiny (1947)

Samuel R. Delany photo

“Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor

Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter X (p. 133)
Context: A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.

Related topics