Quotes about freedom (4699 quotes, page 11)

“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap.”

Max Stirner (1806–1856) German philosopher

As quoted in Forbes Vol. 78 (1956), and in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 275
Context: Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

“It's those that fight hardest for freedom who are never free.”

David Clement-Davies book Fell

Source: Fell

Fight

“To discover the mode of life or of art whereby my spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life , Art

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Motivational , Success , Inspirational , Life

“Does the cosmos contain keys for opening my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Strong

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

People

“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 (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution http://www.constitution.org/rc/rat_va_05.htm (6 June 1788)
Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention on the Control of the Military (16 June 1788); published in The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788, with some account by eminent Virginians of that era who were members of that body (1890), Vol. I, p. 130 (Hugh Blair Grigsby et al, editors, )
1780s
Context: Since the general civilization of mankind, 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; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes.

People

“You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Tikkun (July-August 1989); also quoted in The Best Liberal Quotes Ever : Why the Left is Right (2004) by William P. Martin, p. 51.

Democracy

“Sexual freedom, sexual liberation. A modern delusion. We are hierarchical animals. Sweep one hierarchy away, and another will take its place, perhaps less palatable than the first.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 3

Animals

“As we're fighting through the issues of the day, let's just keep in mind that we rise above the challenges of the day and understand that it's not just us and our constituents and the country, the United States, that's counting on us to be successful. People all around the world believe in freedom are counting on us as well, and we will deliver for them. That's why I am so honored to be back here in the House serving with you. God bless each and every one of you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Steve Scalise (1965) American politician

Speech to Congress https://www.c-span.org/video/?434564-1/us-house-passes-faa-funding-extension-264155 (September 28 2017)

God , People , World , Understanding

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love , Life , Death , God

“We do, to what extent of freedom we have earned or are allowed by others and ourselves, what we most want to do. We say - speak, paint, carve, write, express ourselves… as we damn please. And in both the doing of things and the talking about them - which together seem to me to sum up life - we so crave freedom or liberty or whatever one may choose to call it as to justify our Declaration's romantically terming it an unalienable right of Man, bestowed on Man by his Creator.”

Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) American artist

This Is My Own, p. 130 (1940)

Life , Painting

“Freedom is more precious than the gift that makes us lose it.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Más preciosa es la libertad que la dádiva, porque se pierde.
Maxim 286
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Hope , Intelligence , Problem , Decision

“He who wishes to study the barometric level of spiritual freedom must examine the relationship of the state to its Jewish subjects.”

Moses Hess (1812–1875) German philosopher

Translation brought in Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 by Jonathan Frankel‏
Die europäische Triarchie (The European Triarchy)

Study

“It was in 1947 that the idea of a conscious monochrome vision came to me... Pure, existential space was regularly winking at me, each time in a more impressive manner, and this sensation of total freedom attracted me so powerfully that I painted some monochrome surfaces just to 'see', to 'see' with my own eyes what existential sensibility granted me; absolute freedom! But each time I could neither imagine or think of the possibility of considering this as a painting, a picture, until the day when I said: Why not?”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

Source: before 1960, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings", p. 15

Imagination , Idea , Thinking , Time

“I want to be free from freedom. Free.”

Giannina Braschi book United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

“Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
Mere Christianity (1952)

God , Way

“I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest."”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland."
Source: Good to be King (2004)

Alcohol , Food , Hell , Drink

“In most of the old colonial world, the struggle for independence is coming to an end. Even in areas behind the Curtain, that which Jefferson called "the disease of liberty" still appears to be infectious. With the passing of ancient empires, today less than 2 percent of the world's population lives in territories officially termed "dependent." As this effort for independence, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, now approaches a successful close, a great new effort — for interdependence — is transforming the world about us. And the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution. That spirit is today most clearly seen across the Atlantic Ocean. The nations of Western Europe, long divided by feuds far more bitter than any which existed among the 13 colonies, are today joining together, seeking, as our forefathers sought, to find freedom in diversity and in unity, strength.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Address at Independence Hall

World , Disease , Birth , Effort

“At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," was prepared to ask the right question: "Which side is the federal government on?" That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence, strange, considering how often this same government had been willing to intervene outside the country, often with overwhelming force.
John Lewis and SNCC had reason to be angry. John had been beaten bloody by a white mob in Montgomery as a Freedom Rider in the spring of 1961. The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but done nothing itself except to have FBI agents take notes. Instead of insisting that blacks and whites had a right to ride the buses together, the Kennedy Administration called for a "cooling-off period," a moratorium on Freedom Rides.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train (1994) Ch. 4: "My Name is Freedom": Albany, Georgia

Dreams , Spring , Question , Country

“Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 5.
Ode to Duty http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww271.html (1805)

Hope , Feeling , Change , Chance

“My aim is freedom and voluntary relations in all fields. The market economy is the result of this in the economic realm; in the cultural realm it means freedom of expression; in politics, democracy and the rule of law; in social life, the right to live according to one's own values and to choose one's company.”

Johan Norberg book In Defense of Global Capitalism

In Defense of Global Capitalism

Life , Law , Democracy

“The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used. We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them--but it's foolishly naive to expect wolves to obey.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Personality

“Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 77

Money , Wealth

“A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus…to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters…And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose. [”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letter to Steve Colbern, as quoted in American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0060394072 (2001), by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), pp. 184-185.
1990s

Family , Thinking , Future , Anger

“We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as he wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now"”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled.
2000s, 2005, Second Inaugural Address (January 2005)

Hunger , God , Age , Peace

“Tsar Nicholas the Bloody, who has dispersed the First and Second Dumas, who has drowned Russia in blood, enslaved Poland and Finland, and is in alliance with out — and-out reactionaries conducting a policy of stifling the Jews and all “aliens”, the tsar whose loyal friends shot down the workers on the Lena and ruined the peasants to the point of starvation all over Russia — that tsar pretends to be the champion of Slav independence and freedom!"”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 41, pp. 262–66
Collected Works

“We want to stop all immigration from Islamic countries. We want to stimulate voluntary re-emigration to Islamic countries. We want to expel all criminals with dual citizenship and deprive them of their Dutch nationality. We want to de-islamize our nation. Dear Friends, there is a lot of work to do. We, the defenders of freedom and security, have an historic duty. Our generation has been entrusted with a huge task: To oppose Islam and keep the flame of liberty burning. I say it without exaggeration: the future of human civilization depends on us. Now is a time when everyone in the West must do his duty. We are writing history here. So, let us do our duty. Let us stand with a happy heart and a strong spirit. Let us go forth with courage and save freedom!”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech http://www.pvv.nl/index.php/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/7981-geert-wilders-speech-danish-free-press-society-copenhagen-2-11-2014.html at the 10 years memorial conference for Theo Van Gogh arranged by the Danish Free Press Society (Copenhagen, 2 November 2014); Video: Geert Wilders speaks in the Danish Parliament Building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgpzi0PW0w
2010s

History , Courage , Strong , Time

“Blasphemy is not a crime. It’s a right. It needs to be exercised. We have the right not to believe lies. That’s important. Freedom of religion means freedom from religion as well. You can’t have freedom to practice your religion if you’re not free from the dominant religion. It is basic sense.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

Religion , Exercises , Sense

“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Regarding John Brown, as quoted in A Lecture On John Brown http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mfd&fileName=22/22002/22002page.db&recNum=9&tempFile=./temp/~ammem_rvc6&filecode=mfd&next_filecode=mfd&prev_filecode=mfd&itemnum=2&ndocs=32

Light , Time , Sun , Fight

“America's got a much stronger tradition of free speech and freedom of the press. In Europe, it's much more nuanced and they put a lot of meaning on the rights of your reputation.”

Noam Cohen (1999) American journalist

Interviewed live on MSNBC program Morning Joe; quoted in — MSNBC, July 7, 2014, Google begins cleaning up online reputations, Morning Joe, Mika, Brzezinski, w:Mika Brzezinski, October 29, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141029161113/http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/google-begins-cleaning-up-online-reputations-298468419646, October 29, 2014 http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/google-begins-cleaning-up-online-reputations-298468419646,

“The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance — of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1956)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Beauty , Behavior , Soul , Thinking

“Liberty, n. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Composition allows the artist the greatest possible freedom, so that his subjectivity can express itself, to a certain degree, for as long as needed.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

1910's, Natural Reality and Abstract Reality', 1919

“I think that the sweetest freedom for a man on earth consists in being able to live, if he likes, without having the need to work.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 79

Thinking

“The Valkyries are symbols not only of courage but of intelligence; they represent the human spirit snatching its opportunity while the going is good, and one of them even finds time to love. Bruennhilde's last song hymns the recurrence of love, and since it is the privilege of art to exaggerate she goes even further, and proclaims the love which is eternally triumphant, and feeds upon freedom and lives.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)

Love , Art , Intelligence , Courage

“A worldwide movement is emerging that puts an end to the politically correct doctrines of the elites. The voice of freedom cannot be imprisoned. I tell you, the battle of the elite against the people will be won by the people.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Final Statement of Geert Wilders at his Trial https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9404/wilders-trial-closing-statement (23 November 2016)
2010s

People

“For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Beauty , Art , Sense , Heart

“The [Afghans] understand the difficult truth that their best hope of freedom lies in a temporary experience of imperial rule.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

"Nation Building Lite", New York Times Magazine (July 2002)

Truth , Hope , Understanding

“There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the cross-roads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us there need be no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to right or left. Our way is straight and clear—the building up of a socialist democracy at home with freedom and prosperity for all, and the maintenance of world peace and friendship with all nations.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

First broadcast as Prime Minister, on 11 June 1964 http://lbsim.ac.in/about-shastriji.aspx?mpgid=2&pgid1=10&pgidtrail=11

Life , Friendship , World , Peace

“We must advance … because Christianity and Freedom are incompatible”

François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797) French political agitator and journalist of the French Revolutionary period

Il faut avancer... parce que le christianisme et la liberté sont incompatibles
[in Gracchus Babeuf avec les Egaux, Jean-Marc Shiappa, Les éditions ouvrières, 1991, 72, 27082 2892-7]
On religion

“…all men naturally love freedom, however ignorant they may be of that eternal vigilance and the necessary measures to preserve it, and where their folly has caused them to lose it, always try to return to it.”

George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer

From Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty? (1920) by George H. Earle, Jr.

Love , Men , Nature

“I recalled to him [Morarji Desia] our long association in the freedom movement and after and how I always treated him as an elder brother. I pointed out, however, that in the national interest a distinction had to be maintained between personal relationship and public responsibilities in the discharge of our duties. I referred to the growing disenchantment and disillusionment of our people”

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) sixth President of India

On his differences with the Prime Minister Morarji Desai, in: p. 237
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Prime Ministers, Volume 1

People , Personality

“Such a tendency has the slave-trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men—No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! For it raises the owner to a state as far above man as it depresses the slave below it; and, with all the presumption of human pride, sets a distinction between them, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration! Yet how mistaken is the avarice even of the planters? Are slaves more useful by being thus humbled to the condition of brutes, than they would be if suffered to enjoy the privileges of men? The freedom which diffuses health and prosperity throughout Britain answers you—No. When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!—An assertion at once impious and absurd. Why do you use those instruments of torture? Are they fit to be applied by one rational being to another? And are ye not struck with shame and mortification, to see the partakers of your nature reduced so low? But, above all, are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment? Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? […] But by changing your conduct, and treating your slaves as men, every cause of fear would be banished. They would be faithful, honest, intelligent and vigorous; and peace, prosperity, and happiness, would attend you.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. V
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Men , God , War , Health

“Freedom cannot be expected to tolerate that which would destroy it. Fundamentalist and extremist Islam is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy. The real issue for those wishing to remain free is not an argument about headdress but the threat posed to our freedoms and way of life by a minority of people and how the state chooses to deal with it - if indeed it has the courage to do so at all.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy https://web.archive.org/web/20070927174923/http://www.tfa.net/pdfs/60610.pdf (2006)
2006

Life , People , Way , Democracy

“If the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

People

“If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim — and if they used both halves of their brains — then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Revenge of the Cookie Monster".

People

“The main defect of idealism in philosophy and history is that it attempts to analyze the properties of societies by inference from the content of the dominant systems of ideas in those societies. But this neglects altogether the fact that there is not a unilateral relationship between values and power: the dominant class is able to disseminate ideas which are the legitimations of its position of dominance. Thus the ideas of freedom and equality which come to the fore in bourgeois society cannot be taken at their “face value,” as directly summing up social reality; on the contrary, the legal freedoms which exist in bourgeois society actually serve to legitimize the reality of contractual obligations in which propertyless wage-labor is heavily disadvantaged as compared to the owners of capital. … While ideologies obviously show continuity over time, neither this continuity. nor any changes which occur, can be explained purely in terms of their internal content. Ideas do not evolve on their own account; they do so as elements of the consciousness of men living in society.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

(describing Marx’s view), pp. 41-42.
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971)

Men , History , Idea , Reality

“Satirists, be careful. In the 1931 film by René Clair Vive la Liberte a song says, "Work is freedom." In 1940 the sign on the gates to Auschwitz said: "Arbeit macht frei."”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

“I have little interest in the "conscientious objector"; but I have the greatest regard for the individual thinker. The former opposes private conviction to public policy. His inflexibility is symptomatic of will and emotion, rather than enlightenment. The latter opposes freedom of thought to uniformity of opinion.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Integrity of the Intellect (July 1920)

“Freedom of expression cannot be the freedom to tell lies, the prophet did not found a terrorist religion, but a religion of peace.”

Dalil Boubakeur (1940)

As quoted in [Prophet cartoons enraging Muslims, International Herald Tribune, 2 February 2006, http://web.archive.org/web/20060204165912/http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/02/news/toon.php?, 2007-11-22]

Peace , Religion

“In the modern view, unbridled personal freedom is the only good to be pursued; any obstacle to it is a problem to be overcome.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

All Sex, All the Time http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-all_sex.html (Summer 2000).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Problem , Personality

“I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever “fixed” at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite “The Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.”

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

ThurgoodMarshall.com, Speeches. Constitutional Speech http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/constitutional_speech.htm (May 6, 1987)

Wisdom , War , Justice , Sense

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.”

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

1960s, (1963)

People

“Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

letter to the Abbés Chalut and Arnaud (17 April 1787).
Epistles

People

“America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, A Great People Has Been Moved to Defend a Great Nation (September 2001)

World , Light

“We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.”

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

1950s
Source: Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott

Justice , Night

“The embarrassing truth — the brontosaurus in the broom closet that nobody wants to talk about — is that the Republican Party was never the party of freedom. That Goldwater business in the 1960s was a fluke, immediately snuffed out by "older, wiser heads" in the GOP like those of Nelson Rockefeller, Weeping Willy Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge, and George Romney. The Republican Party was created in the 1850s by northeastern mercantilists just like them, to crush the hopes of poor southerners for individual liberty and independence, and keep them bound in serfdom, paying 80 percent of all taxes collected in America.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Brontosaurus in the Broom Closet" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle541-20091018-05.html 18 October 2009.

Truth , Hope , Business

“The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states. Therefore, the first thing to say to yourself: 'I shall no longer accept the role of a slave. I shall not obey orders as such but shall disobey them when they are in conflict with my conscience.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (24 February 1946). As quoted in The Politics Of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, Porter Sargent Publishers (1973), p. 59
1940s

Way

“I speak not with a feeling of anger or hatred towards those who are responsible for the immense suffering of our people and the destruction of our land, homes and culture. They too are human beings who struggle to find happiness and deserve our compassion. I speak to inform you of the sad situation in my country today and of the aspirations of my people, because in our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Nobel lecture (1989)

People , Truth , Sadness , Feeling

“Well, when all is said and done
Best within my narrow way,
May some angel of the sun
Muse memorial o'er my clay:
'Here was beauty all betrayed
From the freedom of her state;
From her human uses stayed
On an idle rhyme to wait.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Beauty , Angels , Way , Memory

“I believe with Schopenhauer: We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being. I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime; nevertheless, I must protect myself from unpleasant contacts. I may consider him guiltless, but I prefer not to take tea with him.”

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

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)

Communication , Tea

“The United States was taxed with following a policy whose logic was "genocide" for helping South Vietnam deal with "a peasant-based insurrection led by Communists" while the genuinely genocidal practices of North Vietnam in liquidating whole categories of the population were not mentioned. On his visit to Hanoi, Chomsky publicly held North Vietnam up to the world as a model of social justice and freedom. Whenever Chomsky and those who repeated some of his absurd views were challenged, they often cited as their authority someone else who had uttered similar absurdities, as if this vindicated the point they were making.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Out of Step (1985)

World , Justice , Help

“There is something for which Lincoln should be applauded, I believe. And it is that he was shrewd enough to know that the only hope of winning the Civil War resided in creating the opportunity to fight for their own freedom, and that was the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

War , Hope , Fight

“Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent — the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Preface to the first edition of The American Credo : A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind (1920)
1920s

Men , Way , Change

“Rat and behavioral psychology … mirror the actual inhumanity of reality. Rat psychology is human psychology where a total society has trained human beings to be creatures of stimulus and response, i. e. rats. “Insofar as the hardening of society has reduced men more and more to objects,” wrote Adorno, “methods which convey this are no sacrilege. … The method serves freedom in that it wordlessly testifies to the prevailing unfreedom.” Or, as Adorno and Horkheimer wrote in another context: “The usual objection that empirical social research is too mechanical, too crude, and too unspiritual [ungeistig] shifts the responsibility from that which science is investigating to science itself.” … The idealistic misconception of … behavioral methods … shifts the evil from the social conditions that coerce men and women into standardized roles onto the social science that is merely registering these conditions.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 69

Women , Men , Behavior , Reality

“Big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in complete freedom. It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions.
We see with the greatest clarity: (i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and (ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils altogether.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

Exercises , Appearance , Evil

“It does so happen to be the case that if the freedom of the people of this country—and especially the rights of trade unionists—if those precious things in the past had been left to the good sense and fairmindedness of judges, we would have precious few freedoms in this country.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Speech to the Union of Post Office Workers at Bournemouth (15 May 1977).
1970s

People , Sense , Past , Country

“San Domingo, with a stable government, under which her immense resources can be developed, will give remunerative wages to tens of thousands of laborers not now upon the island. This labor will take advantage of every available means of transportation to abandon the adjacent islands and seek the blessings of freedom and its sequence—each inhabitant receiving the reward of his own labor. Porto Rico and Cuba will have to abolish slavery, as a measure of self-preservation, to retain their laborers.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Second State of the Union Address (1870)

“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Source: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 79.

“In so far as we are individuals, each of us is a fragment of a species, a part of this universe, a single dot in the immense network of forces and influences, cosmic, ethnic, historic, whose laws we obey. We are subject to the determination of the physical world. But each man is also a person, he is not subject to the stars and atoms; for he subsists entirely with the very subsistence of his spiritual soul, and the latter is in him a principle of creative unity, of independence and of freedom.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

Scholasticism and Politics (1940)

World , Law , Soul , Star

“As a noun, design is the named (although sometimes unnamable) structure or behavior of a system whose presence resolves or contributes to the resolution of a force or forces on that system. A design thus represents one point in a potential decision space. A design may be singular (representing a leaf decision) or it may be collective (representing a set of other decisions).
As a verb, design is the activity of making such decisions. Given a large set of forces, a relatively malleable set of materials, and a large landscape upon which to play, the resulting decision space may be large and complex. As such, there is a science associated with design (empirical analysis can point us to optimal regions or exact points in this design space) as well as an art (within the degrees of freedom that range beyond an empirical decision; there are opportunities for elegance, beauty, simplicity, novelty, and cleverness).
All architecture is design but not all design is architecture. Architecture represents the significant design decisions that shape a system, where significant is measured by cost of change.”

Grady Booch (1955) American software engineer

Grady Booch (2006) " On design https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/gradybooch/entry/on_design?lang=en" cited in: Frank Buschmann, ‎Kevlin Henney, ‎Douglas C. Schmidt (2007) Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, On Patterns and Pattern Languages. p. 214

Beauty , Art , Behavior , Optimism

“The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)

Law

“And that is what the Constitution is all about -- providing freedom from abuse by those in authority. Anyone who says the American Constitution is obsolete just because social and economic conditions have changed does not understand the real genius of the Constitution. It was designed to control something which has not changed and will not change - namely, human nature.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)

Understanding , Nature , Change

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (8 May 1945) from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1344
The Second World War (1939–1945)

God , Lie , Justice , Home

“To strengthen the work of Congress I strongly urge an amendment to provide a four-year term for Members of the House of Representatives—which should not begin before 1972. The present two-year term requires most members of Congress to divert enormous energies to an almost constant process of campaigning—depriving this nation of the fullest measure of both their skill and their wisdom. Today, too, the work of government is far more complex than in our early years, requiring more time to learn and more time to master the technical tasks of legislating. And a longer term will serve to attract more men of the highest quality to political life. The nation, the principle of democracy, and, I think, each congressional district, will all be better served by a four-year term for members of the House. And I urge your swift action. Tonight the cup of peril is full in Vietnam. That conflict is not an isolated episode, but another great event in the policy that we have followed with strong consistency since World War II. The touchstone of that policy is the interest of the United States—the welfare and the freedom of the people of the United States. But nations sink when they see that interest only through a narrow glass. In a world that has grown small and dangerous, pursuit of narrow aims could bring decay and even disaster. An America that is mighty beyond description—yet living in a hostile or despairing world—would be neither safe nor free to build a civilization to liberate the spirit of man. In this pursuit we helped rebuild Western Europe. We gave our aid to Greece and Turkey, and we defended the freedom of Berlin. In this pursuit we have helped new nations toward independence. We have extended the helping hand of the Peace Corps and carried forward the largest program of economic assistance in the world. And in this pursuit we work to build a hemisphere of democracy and of social justice. In this pursuit we have defended against Communist aggression—in Korea under President Truman—in the Formosa Straits under President Eisenhower—in Cuba under President Kennedy—and again in Vietnam.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life , Wisdom , Men , Hostility

“We Conservatives…are realists. We know that the British are one of the most creative and gifted peoples on earth. But we also know that the British are individualists, who do not respond to state direction and control. We like leadership—yes. But, above all, we like freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Article for the News of the World (29 April 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104052
Leader of the Opposition

People

“It was an idea that made the crucial difference between British and Iberian America – an idea about the way people should govern themselves. Some people make the mistake of calling that idea ‘democracy’ and imagining that any country can adopt it merely by holding elections. In reality, democracy was the capstone of an edifice that had as its foundation the rule of law – to be precise, the sanctity of individual freedom and the security of private property rights, ensured by representative, constitutional government.”

Niall Ferguson book Civilization: The West and the Rest

Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011)

People , Law , Way , Democracy

“And in a flash I understood the meaning of sex. It is a craving for the mingling of consciousness, whose symbol is the mingling of bodies. Every time a man and a woman slake their thirst in the strange waters of the other's identity, they glimpse the immensity of their freedom.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The God of the Labyrinth (1970), p. 252

Sex , Water , Time

“The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation; the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism; the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be. This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2006, Speech at the American Legion National Convention (August 2006)

War , People , History , Decision

“concerning this selfstyled world's greatest and most generous literary figure: who had just arrived in our nation's capitol, attired in half a GI uniform and ready to be hanged as a traitor by the only country which ever made even a pretense of fighting for freedom of speech
Re Ezra Pound — poetry happens to be an art; and artists happen to be human beings.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Re Ezra Pound (p. 69)
i : six nonlectures (1953)

World , Art , Fight , Country

“Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 91.

Wealth

“The old world is engaged in a struggle to find a way by which each race living on its own soil, separated by definite national boundaries, can be assured freedom and peace in the full development of its national life and in the realization of international opportunities. The task of America is different. It is for her to find the way by which these races, living on one soil, under one form of government, with no territorial lines, can be assimilated and become a part of her integral national life.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life , World , Peace , Way

“What haunts me is not exactly the absence of literal space so much as a deep craving for metaphorical space: release, escape, some kind of open-ended freedom.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999

“Knowledge isn’t restrained by the limits of Malthus. Information doesn’t need topsoil to grow in, only freedom. Given eager minds and experimentation, it feeds itself like a chain reaction.”

David Brin book Earth

Part IX (p. 531)
Earth (1990)

Knowledge

“Never more than to-day were needed the men of calm and resolute faith. Brothers, to your knees and to your ranks! To your knees in humblest supplication; to your ranks in steadfast bravery which no foe can cause to quail. Stand forth in courage and in gentleness for the truth which you believe to be allied to Freedom and Progress and God. Be so strong that you are not afraid to be just. Cherish a tender humanity and a catholic heart. Then take your stand, calm and moveless as the stars.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 222.

Men , God , Truth , Faith

“Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Music.”

Sun Ra (1914–1993) American jazz composer and bandleader

"The Neglected Plane of Wisdom" (1966), p. 250
Sun Ra : The Immeasurable Equation (2005)

Music

“I believe every creature is born with the inalienable right of freedom. Freedom to live in its natural environment, with its own kind, making its own decisions. I believe the law should prohibit the enslavement of all non human species for any purpose whatever.”

Jim Morris (bodybuilder) (1935–2016) American bodybuilder

"Black Male Vegan: 77-Year-Old Bodybuilder Jim Morris Proves Vegans Can Be Muscular & Healthy" http://frugivoremag.com/2012/10/black-male-vegan-77-year-old-bodybuilder-jim-morris-proves-vegans-can-be-muscular-healthy/, interview with Frugivore magazine (October 2, 2012).

Law , Nature , Decision

“In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man. However much we may try to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that dies not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity. We are bound together in a single garment of destiny. The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity, and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.”

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

As quoted in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
1960s

Food , Music , Failure

“O blissful poverty!
Nature, too partial! to thy lot assigns
Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace,
Her real goods: and only mocks the great
With empty pageantries!”

Elijah Fenton (1683–1730) British poet

Act V, Scene I, p. 56
Mariamne: A Tragedy (1723)

Health , Peace , Nature

“The principle of flexibility… suggests a corresponding strategy of conflict resolution. …the community will need stability and change, order and freedom, tradition and innovation. …these unavoidable conflicts are much better resolved by establishing a dynamic balance.”

Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Epilogue: Ecological Literacy
The Web of Life (1996)

Communication , Change

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”

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

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

People

“They [the slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians!”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Chapter VI http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca3t.html
1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)

“The answer, then, to the question of who freed the slaves is not the slaves, and not even (as Blight tries to temporize) both the slaves and Lincoln. It was Lincoln's task—and Lincoln did it. This may not work to promote anyone else's self-esteem, but it did wonders for providing freedom.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Letter (2010)

Question

“The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party… loses its nature—it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Interview by Jean-Luc Douin http://web.archive.org/web/20130421061108/http://my.opera.com/PRC/blog/?startidx=560

Life , People , World , Literature

“Hail the mild morning, where the dawn began,
The full fruition of the hopes of man.
Where sage Experience seals the sacred cause,
And that rare union, Liberty and Laws,
Speaks to the reas'ning race “to freedom rise,
Like them be equal, and like them be wise."”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)

Law , Hope

“War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, “War is the health of the State.” War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the State to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.
On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. If War is indeed the “health of the State,” then Peace can be nothing less than the “health of the People.” Being at peace means valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. Being at peace means young fathers and mothers can live and enjoy free trade, not only among themselves but with the world, instead of dying capriciously and unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice.
History teaches us that the key elements to prosperity are freedom and peace. You don’t go to war with people you like, or with people you know, or with people with whom you are trading and doing business. Even after our fledgling republic was nearly torn asunder in civil war which literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the South, our reunited nation and all its people advanced and prospered after peace was restored.”

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

" Why Peace? Why Not? http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7277," Liberty For All (11 February 2012, retrieved 25 February 2012).
Republished http://original.antiwar.com/lee-wrights/2012/02/15/why-peace-why-not/ by Antiwar.com (16 February 2012).
2012

War , People , Health , World

“It is not enough to accept a concept of order and live by it; that is cowardice, and such cowardice cannot result from freedom. Chaos must be faced. Real order must be preceded by a descent into chaos.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Three, The Romantic Outsider

“The essence of mathematics lies entirely in its freedom.”

Georg Cantor (1845–1918) mathematician, inventor of set theory

Variant translation: The essence of mathematics is in its freedom.
From Kant to Hilbert (1996)

Mathematics

Quotes about freedom page 11

Quotes about freedom
page 11