“We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same. America's diversity offers so much richness and opportunity. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences, which divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison you. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side. We shall have liberty for all.”

— Thurgood Marshall

Speech delivered on September 6, 1990, before the Annual Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit, quoted in Supreme Justice Speeches and Writings Thurgood Marshall. Edited by J. Clay Smith, Jr., 2002
Context: The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes-even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. The country can't do it. Afro and White, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, our fates are bound together. We can run from each other, but we cannot escape each other. We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same. America's diversity offers so much richness and opportunity. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences, which divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison you. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side. We shall have liberty for all.

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Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court 1908–1993

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“The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes-even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. The country can't do it. Afro and White, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, our fates are bound together. We can run from each other, but we cannot escape each other. We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same. America's diversity offers so much richness and opportunity. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences, which divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison you. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side. We shall have liberty for all.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

“If we are ready to tear down the walls that confine us, break the cage that imprisons us, we will discover what our wings are for.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All Will be Well (2004)

“We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That’s not primal freedom. That’s a secondary or even tertiary freedom. The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances. That’s what great religion offers us. That’s what real prayer offers us. That’s why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective. Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 93

“The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them…The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say…”

Harlan F. Stone (1872–1946) United States federal judge

Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 604 (1940).

“We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

As quoted in The 100 Greatest Heroes (2003) p. 60 by Harry Paul Jeffers
2000s

“We might have a chance now to rebuild it all with what we have left. We might have learned that we can exist only as a part of nature, not apart from nature.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Rebellers (1963), p. 155

“Freedom is taking so much for granted, when you don't appreciate the small things that you have.”

Cameron Duncan (1986–2003) New Zealand filmmaker

DFK6498

“My parents -- we lived in Brooklyn, NY, we owned a house -- my parents were difficult people, they didn't get along with anyone. Actually, they didn't even get along with each other. So, on the one side were the Golds and on the other side were the Kasslers and they did not get along with the Golds and they did not get along with the Kasslers, so they built a fence. And it was within their right to build a fence. But, as everybody knows, when you build at fence, at any rate in New York, you first have to hire a surveyor. That's a fact, I'm not joking. You have to hire a surveyor and you have to make sure that fence is right down the line on your property because if that fence is literally one quarter of an inch on the Golds' side or on the Kasslers' side, they have the right to tear it down. Under law, that's it. Now, let's take Israel's wall. What happens if my parents decide to build a fence that's not only on the Kasslers' side but goes right around their swimming pool? Well, some people will begin to wonder "are Mary and Harry Finkelstein trying to protect their property? Or are they trying to steal the Kasslers' swimming pool?"”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Other sourced statements
Source: Talk at Santa Cruz, CA http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=600, October 23, 2006

“The intention of the Chinese government taking away our freedom is so obvious that we know, if we don't fight, we will lose everything...When you lose the freedom, you lose everything. What do you have?”

Jimmy Lai (1948) Hong Kong businessman

October 13, 2019 What keeps the months-long, massive Hong Kong protests going? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hong-kong-protests-60-minutes-on-the-streets-of-hong-kong-with-pro-democracy-demonstrators-2019-10-13/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=75253573

“As the liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Shall die fighting or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Song for the Luddites http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-Luddites.htm (1816).

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