Quotes about freedom (4699 quotes, page 10)

“Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and there discovered was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Books , Age , World , Learning

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Peace

“Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Intelligence

“So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the West today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

"Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization, The Guardian, February 20, 2011.

Understanding , Sense

“A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Feeling

“Why this cult of wilderness?… because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader

“Nothing gained without cost is valued. Freedom has a cost, and all will bear it so all will value and preserve it.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Variant: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.
Context: Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

World , Fight

“We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Passion

“Mistaking insolence for freedom has always been the hallmark of the slave.”

Wilhelm Reich book Listen, Little Man!

Source: Listen, Little Man!

“…find freedom, aliveness, and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us, but from what dissolves, reveals, and expands us.”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

Source: Insecure at Last

“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Kudlow & Cramer interview (2003)

People

“No man can take your freedom from you. They can limit your mobility, but that's about all they can do”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

“I needed to choose between the one thing that really filled m thoughts-my love for that woman-and losing my freedom and all the choices that the future promised me. To be honest, the decision was easy.
-Lukas Jessen-Petersen”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Love , Decision , Future

“I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.”

Anna Funder (1966) Australian writer

Source: Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

Training

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Peaceful , Drink

“Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun.”

Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Source: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Love , Family , Sleep , Science

“Limiting the freedom of news 'just a little bit' is in the same category with the classic example 'a little bit pregnant.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“… The queen's mocking laughter cut in. "is your treasure, Lord Sheftu?"

"Aye. The greatest treasure in Egypt—a maid whose loyalty cannot be bought. Whatever bargain we make, Daughter of the Sun, must include her freedom.”

Eloise Jarvis McGraw book Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Source: Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Laughter , Sun , Daughters , Loyalty

“There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Courage , Suffering

“You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Men , Animals

“I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom," he said to himself, "but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe

Men

“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

United Europe Meeting, Albert Hall, London (May 14, 1947). Cited in Churchill by Himself, ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs (2008), p. 26 ISBN 1586486381
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Justice , Hope

“I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom… Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“There was an unexpected freedom in
ﬁnding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

“The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Motivational

“Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Art

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Variant: I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.
Source: Brave New World

God

“I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Women , Men

“I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.”

Tana French book The Likeness

Source: The Likeness

Grass

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Pain

“Every man or woman who makes a stand helps keep the flame of freedom burning.”

Juliet Marillier book Shadowfell

Source: Shadowfell

Help

“I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

People , Youth , Time , Joy

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Truth , History , Thinking , Forgetting

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist

World , Peace , Faith , Justice

“It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Men , Truth , Faith , Courage

“The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Clothes

“Freedom is not a license to act but a license to exercise free choices in any given situation.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Exercises

“This isn't going to be pretty. Rules will be broken. Friendships will be tested. And huge risks will be taken. But they're small prices to pay for true love and freedom, right?”

Lisi Harrison Monster High

Source: Monster High

Love , Friendship

“The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

Exercises , Country

“Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Kiss

“Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, What's So Great about Christianity (2007), Ch. 3
Source: What's So Great About Christianity
Context: Today courts wrongly interpret separation of church and state to mean that religion has no place in the public arena, or that morality derived from religion should not be permitted to shape our laws. Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression. Secularists want to empty the public square of religion and religious-based morality so they can monopolize the shared space of society with their own views.

“That's the question, isn't it?" you said one night. "Does death bring freedom, or is it the end of freedom?”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Death , Question , Night

“Whatever it takes for you to find your freedom, that's what you've lived.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

“Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.”

Philip G. Zimbardo book The Lucifer Effect

Source: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Fear , Law

“I had no Freedom. I had nothing.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“With wild eyes that had seen freedom.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

“You actually cannot sell the idea of freedom, democracy, diversity, as if it were a brand attribute and not reality -- not at the same time as you're bombing people, you can't.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

People , Democracy , Idea , Reality

“The ocean was the best place, of course. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, and yet a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched.”

Ann Brashares (1967) American children's writer

Love , Feeling , Water

“The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand."

"If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

Love , Understanding

“Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Personality

“Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Religion , Feeling , Evil

“We have a talent for disguising greed under the cloak of freedom. As for past acts of depravity, we prefer to ignore those. Progress, after all, means to look ever forward, and whatever we have trampled in our wake is best forgotten.”

Steven Erikson book Midnight Tides

Source: Midnight Tides

Past

“The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Essay, written under the pseudonym "Candidus," in The Boston Gazette (14 October 1771) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2092, later published in The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (1865) by William Vincent Wells, p. 425

Truth

“When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol.”

Joel Salatin (1957) American environmentalist

Source: Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

Fear , Faith , Way , Silence

“Free societies… are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

People

“The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Hell

“Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.”

Joseph O`Connor (1916–2001) Anglo-Irish actor and playwright

Source: Star of the Sea

Love

“There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

World

“The truly revolutionary promise of our nation's founding document is the freedom to pursue happiness-with-a-capital-H.”

Dan Savage (1964) American sex advice columnist and gay rights campaigner

Source: Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America

Happiness

“I need this wild life, this freedom.”

Zane Grey (1872–1939) American novelist

Life

“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

"Trefusis Blasphemes" radio broadcast, as published in Paperweight (1993)
1990s
Context: I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.

Truth , Lovers

“… freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Soul

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Life

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Life , Men , Flowers , Heart

“You have never tasted freedom friend, or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.”

Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire

Dienekes p. 60
Gates of Fire (1998)
Source: Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

“Without democracy freedom is a chimera”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: Libertad Bajo Palabra

Democracy

“Freedom begins between the ears.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

“The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Evil

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Epitaph, upon his instructions to erect a "a plain die or cube … surmounted by an Obelisk" with "the following inscription, and not a word more…because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered." It omits that he had been President of the United States, a position of political power and prestige, and celebrates his involvement in the creation of the means of inspiration and instruction by which many human lives have been liberated from oppression and ignorance.
Posthumous publications

Universe

“I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed in FBI Memo, February 13, 1950 (item 61-4099-25 in Einstein's FBI file—viewable online as p. 72 of "Albert Einstein Part 1 of 14" here http://vault.fbi.gov/Albert%20Einstein, as well as p. 72 of the pdf file which can be downloaded here http://vault.fbi.gov/Albert%20Einstein/Albert%20Einstein%20Part%201%20of%2014/at_download/file). There is no other information in the FBI's released files as to what source attributed this statement to Einstein, and the files are full of falsehoods, including the accusation that Einstein was secretly pro-communist, when in fact he was openly so Albert Einstein#Vierick Interview (1929)
Disputed
Context: In December, 1947, he made the following statement: "I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my life."

Country

“I wish there is a world where any one can know the truth and speak there mind with freedom without having to fear for their lives (Rinko, Basara, Vol. 13)”

Yumi Tamura Manga artist

Source: Basara, Vol. 13

Truth , World , Fear