Quotes about freedom

page 42

1960s, A Christian Movement in a Revolutionary Age (1965)
Context: When Moses walked into the courts of Pharaoh and thundered forth with the call to "Let my people go," he introduced into history the concept of a God who was concerned about the freedom and dignity of all his children and who was willing to turn heaven and earth that freedom might be a realty. Throughout the history of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament, we see God active in the affairs of men, struggling relentlessly against the forces of evil that beset them and seeking to mold a people who will serve as his children, as partners in the building of His kingdom here on earth. The God of our fathers is a God of revolution. He will not be content with anything less than perfection in His children and in their society. It is this strong biblical tradition which has been the foundation of the freedom struggle for the past three centuries. As far as back as the early days of slavery black men heard the story of Mosees and learned of this great God who would lead his people to freedom, and so they sang, "Go Down Moses." They sang of a "Balm in Gilead" that would "heal the sin-sick soul" and "make the wounded whole." They sand of Ezekial's dry bones and prophesied the day when the dry bones of the valleys of our land would rise up and become men and stand tall for freedom and dignity.

Source: Discourses (1967), Vol. III, Ch. 1 : The Avatar, p. 11.
Context: CONSCIOUSLY or unconsciously, every living creature seeks one thing. In the lower forms of life and in less advanced human beings, the quest is unconscious; in advanced human beings, it is conscious. The object of the quest is called by many names — happiness, peace, freedom, truth, love, perfection, Self-realisation, God-realisation, union with God. Essentially, it is a search for all of these, but in a special way. Everyone has moments of happiness, glimpses of truth, fleeting experiences of union with God; what they want is to make them permanent. They want to establish an abiding reality in the midst of constant change.
It is a natural desire, based fundamentally on a memory, dim or clear as the individual’s evolution may be low or high, of his essential unity with God; for, every living thing is a partial manifestation of God, conditioned only by its lack of knowledge of its own true nature. The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity, in which God Himself, essentially eternal and unchangeable, assumes an infinite variety of forms, enjoys an infinite variety of experiences and transcends an infinite variety of self-imposed limitations. Evolution from the standpoint of the Creator is a divine sport, in which the Unconditioned tests the infinitude of His absolute knowledge, power and bliss in the midst of all conditions. But evolution from the standpoint of the creature, with his limited knowledge, limited power, limited capacity for enjoying bliss, is an epic of alternating rest and struggle, joy and sorrow, love and hate, until, in the perfected man, God balances the pairs of opposites and transcends duality. Then creature and Creator recognise themselves as one; changelessness is established in the midst of change, eternity is experienced in the midst of time. God knows Himself as God, unchangeable in essence, infinite in manifestation, ever experiencing the supreme bliss of Self-realisation in continually fresh awareness of Himself by Himself.
This realisation must and does take place only in the midst of life, for it is only in the midst of life that limitation can be experienced and transcended, and that subsequent freedom from limitation can be enjoyed.

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)
Context: For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command. This is not to suggest that the Negro will solve all his problems through Planned Parenthood. His problems are far more complex, encompassing economic security, education, freedom from discrimination, decent housing and access to culture. Yet if family planning is sensible it can facilitate or at least not be an obstacle to the solution of the many profound problems that plague him.

The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or — better still — industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to heirarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to heirarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it.

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108217
Third term as Prime Minister
Context: Now again in the sands of the Middle East, principle is at stake. Mr President, dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed—but they can never be appeased. These things are not abstractions. What changed the world and what will save the world were principle and resolve. Our principles: freedom, independence, responsibility, choice—these and the democracy built upon them are Britain's special legacy to the world. And everywhere those who love liberty look to Britain. When they speak of parliaments they look to Westminster. When they speak of justice they look to our common law. And when they seek to regenerate their economies, they look to the transformation we British have accomplished. Principles and resolve: They are what changed Britain a decade ago. They are what the Conservative Party brings to Britain. And they alone can secure her freedom and prosperity in the years ahead.

As quoted in Charles Evans Hughes (1951) by Merlo J. Pusey, Vol. II, p. 794
Context: We still proclaim the old ideals of liberty but we cannot voice them without anxiety in our hearts. The question is no longer one of establishing democratic institutions but of preserving them. … The arch enemies of society are those who know better but by indirection, misstatement, understatement, and slander, seek to accomplish their concealed purposes or to gain profit of some sort by misleading the public. The antidote for these poisons must be found in the sincere and courageous efforts of those who would preserve their cherished freedom by a wise and responsible use of it. Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline.

Journal of John Quincy Adams (11 December 1838),
Context: The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.

Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague;
Variant translation: The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will never cease as long as man feels himself to be trapped. No matter how different the cries for freedom may be, at bottom they always express one and the same thing: the intolerableness of the organism's rigidity and the mechanical institutions of life, which are sharply at variance with the natural sensations of life. ... Not until man acknowledges that he is fundamentally an animal, will he be able to create a genuine culture.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy
Context: The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will not cease to ring as long as man feels himself captive. As diverse as the cries for freedom may be, basically they all express one and the same thing: The intolerability of the rigidity of the organism and of the machine-like institutions which create a sharp conflict with the natural feelings for life. Not until there is a social order in which all cries for freedom subside will man have overcome his biological and social crippling, will he have attained genuine freedom. Not until man is willing to recognize his animal nature — in the good sense of the word — will he create genuine culture.

GWU interview (1997)
Context: You know, you have to really decide where you want to live: if you want to live in the jungle or in the zoo. Because if you want the beauty, if you want freedom, the jungle is... that's your world. But you're in danger there, you have to live with snakes, sharks, tigers, skunks, you know, mosquitoes, leeches. You want to be safe, you have to live in the zoo. You are protected. You know, if you are a lamb, the tiger will not attack you. You know, you'll get a little bit something to eat every day; that's fine. You have to work hard, but you live behind the bars, and what's wonderful — you live there behind the bars and you dream about the beauty of the jungle. Now what happened was that the bars opened, and everybody runs after the dream. And suddenly, well, yeah, it's beautiful — yes, I am free to go wherever I want, do whatever I want, but where do I want to go? Oh, my God, and here is a tiger and here's a snake. Oh, oh, and people have a tendency to, you know, back. And you will be surprised how many people prefer to live in the zoo; they are not ready to pay for the freedom; they think that freedom should be, you know, for free, even for granted, which never is, never is.

2000s, 2001, Freedom and Democracy Are Under Attack (September 2001)
Context: I want to thank the members of Congress for their unity and support. America is united. The freedom-loving nations of the world stand by our side. This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil. But good will prevail.

2000s, Progressive magazine interview (2003)
Context: I am not a politician or a public servant. I am still a journeyman actor and a peace and justice activist. I'm a pilgrim trying to win my freedom and serve as best I can in the time I have, with this gift I've been given.

The Confession of My Crimes
Context: I was mad at God, I didn’t LIKE God because of how I perceived Him, and the stuff I read on Satanism said two things that appealed to me. #1 — it offered freedom, and #2 — it promised power to control my life, and others. I’d been carted all around the state and Colorado all my life, slapped, smacked, hit, and had whatever I wanted ignored. I was mad and the idea of controlling my life to get what I wanted was like candy to me. Plus I looked at the way everyone around me lived and the stuff I read in the Satanic Bible in principle was lived out in lifestyle by Mom and Dad and everyone else I knew. No one was a real Christian. We didn’t go to church. We didn’t talk about God. … What was the point of pretending to serve God when we lived like Satanists? Satanism taught me that I should make my own rules to live by in life, and that’s just what everyone I’d grown up around did, so I got very involved in Satanism. I truly thought it was an honest way to live, and the rituals of it would enable me to control my life. Even then I didn’t want to kill anyone. That desire didn’t start until later.

Source: Success! (1977), p. 240
Context: The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)
Context: To uphold the Charter's promise of peace and security in the 21st century, we must also confront the ideology of the terrorists. At its core, the struggle against extremists is a battle of ideas. The terrorists envision a world in which religious freedom is denied, women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. The nations of this chamber must present a more hopeful alternative, a vision where people can speak freely, and worship as they choose, and pursue their dreams in liberty.

Source: 1840s, The Concept of Anxiety (1844), p. 61
Context: Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs to dizziness. Further than this, psychology cannot and will not go. In that very moment everything is changed, and freedom, when it again rises, sees that it is guilty. Between these two moments lies the leap, which no science has explained and which no science can explain. He who becomes guilty in anxiety becomes as ambiguously guilty as it is possible to become.

Egyptian high priest, Book X, line 90
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)
Context: A slave's soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks strength
to tread on this great earth with gallantry and freedom.
I pity the poor slaves, they're nought but airy mist,
a light breeze scatters them, a fragrance knocks them down;
it's only just they crawl on the earth on hands and knees.
Today I'll write a hymn to God and pray for this great grace.

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968)
Context: Millions of people throughout the world are striving to put an end to poverty. They despise oppression, dogmatism, and demagogy (and their more extreme manifestations — racism, fascism, Stalinism, and Maoism). They believe in progress based on the use, under conditions of social justice and intellectual freedom, of all the positive experience accumulated by mankind.

Also quoted in "Warrior for Peace" by David Talbot, in TIME (2 July 2007), p. 50 http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1635958_1635999_1634954-6,00.html
1961, Address at the University of Washington
Context: We increase our arms at a heavy cost, primarily to make certain that we will not have to use them. We must face up to the chance of war, if we are to maintain the peace. We must work with certain countries lacking in freedom in order to strengthen the cause of freedom. We find some who call themselves neutral who are our friends and sympathetic to us, and others who call themselves neutral who are unremittingly hostile to us. And as the most powerful defender of freedom on earth, we find ourselves unable to escape the responsibilities of freedom, and yet unable to exercise it without restraints imposed by the very freedoms we seek to protect. We cannot, as a free nation, compete with our adversaries in tactics of terror, assassination, false promises, counterfeit mobs and crises. We cannot, under the scrutiny of a free press and public, tell different stories to different audiences, foreign and domestic, friendly and hostile. We cannot abandon the slow processes of consulting with our allies to match the swift expediencies of those who merely dictate to their satellites. We can neither abandon nor control the international organization in which we now cast less than 1 percent of the vote in the General Assembly. We possess weapons of tremendous power — but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom's foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder. We send arms to other peoples — just as we send them the ideals of democracy in which we believe — but we cannot send them the will to use those arms or to abide by those ideals. And while we believe not only in the force of arms but in the force of right and reason, we have learned that reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men — that it is not always true that "a soft answer turneth away wrath" — and that right does not always make might. In short, we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world's population — that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind — that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity — and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.

Identity (1998), p 146

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
Context: As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)
Context: Suddenly I was tired of Lotterman; he was a phony and he didn't even know it. He was forever yapping about freedom of the press and keeping the paper going, but if he'd had a million dollars and all the freedom in the world he'd still put out a worthless newspaper because he wasn't smart enough to put out a good one. He was just another noisy little punk in the great legion of punks who marched between the banners of bigger and better men. Freedom, Truth, Honour — you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.
I stood up. "Ed," I said using his name for the first time, "I believe I'll quit."

Pt. III, Ch. 19 : The Right to Ignore the State, § 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/273#lf0331_label_200
Social Statics (1851)
Context: As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally selfevident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man’s property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment — a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.

As quoted in "Global citizen", interview in Scouts (July/August 2010), p. 41
Context: I believe the spiritual journey that each of us takes on is a personal one, and I feel religion is a delicate road to be on. I don’t like to belong to one religious community as I don’t want people to feel excluded from asking for my help or learning with me. It’s all about bringing people together to celebrate their various interpretations of scripture. I am a Muslim and I worship in mosques when I am in Pakistan. I also worship in Unitarian churches when I’m in the US. Such spiritual freedom is very important to me.

"Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"
The Still Centre (1939)
Context: The laurelled exiles, kneeling to kiss these sands.
Number there freedom's friends. One who
Within the element of endless summer,
Like leaf in amber, petrified by light,
Studied the root of action. One in a garret
Read books as though he broke up flints.

Context: For many South Koreans today, the Korean War is little more than a tragedy of the past or a tale in abstraction. For others, it is a trauma best forgotten. But on Memorial Day, the South Koreans, as a nation, must not forget the suffering and sacrifice in their national historical experience. The lessons of the most traumatic past must be learned and continually relearned, not only to prevent such a tragedy from repeating itself, but also to honor, as one nation, those who made our freedom possible, and to remember that freedom is certainly never free.

Ch 3 : Creativity and the Unconcious, p. 76
The Courage to Create (1975)
Context: Dogmatists of all kinds — scientific, economic, moral, as well as political — are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyers of our nicely ordered systems. For the creative impulse is the speaking of the voice and the expressing of the forms of the preconscious and unconscious; and this is, by its very nature, a threat to rationality and external control.

On Kate Bush
The Kate Bush Story (2014)
Context: Creativity comes from the freedom to fail. And freedom to fail comes from experimentation, and that's what gives something its individuality. And, you know, I think her courage, which is the positive way of interpreting it, or bloody-mindedness, which is the negative, is part of what gives her real value as an artist.

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 10
Context: Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like : the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: There is a law higher than men can make. The facts as they exist in this poor world -- the absolute consequences of certain acts -- they are above all. And this higher law is the breath of progress, the very outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom we have. Keep that in your minds. There never was a legislature great enough -- there never was a constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilized man to stand between a black man and his liberty. There never was a constitution great enough to make me stand between any human being and his right to express his honest thoughts. Such a constitution is an insult to the human soul, and I would care no more for it than I would for the growl of a wild beast.

Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius (1921)
Context: In point of fact there are two kinds sorts of mysticism, differing from one another as the ranting of drunkards from the language of illumined spirits. There is the muddled, stammering mysticism, and there is the mysticism luminous with truly ultimate ideas. On the one hand there are the empty dimness and darkness, the barren, chilling sentimentalism and mental debauchery, the foolishly grimacing but rigid phantasms of the Cabbala, of occultism, mysteriosophy and theosophy. We cannot draw too sharp a dividing line between these and the brightness, the simple sincerity, and healthy, rejuvenating strength of genuine mysticism, which takes the most precious gems from philosophy's treasure chest and displays them in the beauty of its own setting. Mysticism is in complete accord with the result, with the sum of philosophy. In fact, mysticism is precisely the sum and the soul of philosophy, in the form of that rapturous, passionate outpouring of love.... We are concerned with an understanding of this serious mysticism, and its meaning could be stated in three words... godlessness... freedom from the world... blessedness of soul.

1930s, Quarantine Speech (1937)
Context: Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the equal right of their neighbors to be free and live in peace must work together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that peace, justice, and confidence may prevail in the world. There must be a return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty. There must be recognition of the fact that national morality is as vital as private morality.

The Nature Of Liberty (1873)
Context: "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." — John XV 15
This is unquestionably a contrast between an enforced and a free religious condition. It is a transfer from a life compelled by fear, through conscience, to a life that is inspired and made spontaneous by love. The strength of the phrase does not come out in that term servant. It is slave in the original. To be sure, the condition represented by the term slave was not at that time marked so sharply by the contrast of its misery with surrounding circumstances, as it is in our own day; nevertheless, it was a condition to be deprecated; and throughout the Scripture it is spoken of both as a misfortune and a disgrace. Our Savior looked upon his disciples as if they had, as Jews, and as worshipers after the manner of their fathers, been tied up in a kind of bondage. He was a member of the Jewish commonwealth, and was of the Jewish church; he had never separated himself from any of its ordinances or observances, but was walking as the fathers walked; and his disciples were bound not only to the Mosaic ritual, but to him as a kind of Rabbi; as a reform teacher, but nevertheless a teacher under the Jewish scheme. And so they were servants — slaves; they were rendering an enforced obedience. But he said to them, "Henceforth I shall not call you my servants — persons obeying me, as it were, from compulsion, from a sense of duty, from the stress of a rigorous conscience; I shall now call you friends." And he gives the reason why. A servant is one who receives orders, and is not admitted to conference. He does not know about his lord's affairs. His lord thinks first about his own affairs, and when he has consummated his plans, he gives his directions; so that all the servant has to do is to obey. But a friend sits in counsel with his friend, and bears a part in that friend's thinking and feeling, and in the determinations to which he comes; and Christ said to his disciples "Ycu come into partnership with me hereafter, and you stand at friends, on a kind of equality with me. There is to be liberty between you and me hereafter."
Christ, then, raised men from religion as a bondage to religion as a freedom. I do not like the word religion; but we have nothing else to take its place. It signifies, in the original, to bind, to tie. Men were bound. They were under obligations, and were tied up by them. Christianity is something more than religion— that is, religion interpreted in its etymological sense, and as it is popularly esteemed. Christianity is religion developed into its last form, and carries men from necessity to voluntariness — from bondage to emancipation. It is a condition of the highest and most normal mental state, and is ordinarily spontaneous and free. This is not an accidental phrase.

A Path to Freedom (2010), p. 14
Context: There is no British Government anymore in Ireland. It is gone. It is no longer the enemy. We have now a native government, constitutionally elected, and it is the duty of every Irish man and woman to obey it. Anyone who fails to obey is an enemy of the people and must expect to be treated as such. We have to learn that attitudes and actions which were justifiable when directed against alien administration, holding its position by force, are wholly unjustifiable against a native government which exists only to carry out the people's will, and can be changed the moment it ceases to do so. We have to learn that freedom imposes responsibilities.

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
Context: Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave-system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress.

Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
Context: Men who long for freedom begin the attempt to obtain it by entreating their masters to be kind enough to protect them by modifying the laws which these masters themselves have created!
But times and tempers are changed. Rebels are everywhere to be found who no longer wish to obey the law without knowing whence it comes, what are its uses, and whither arises the obligation to submit to it, and the reverence with which it is encompassed. The rebels of our day are criticizing the very foundations of society which have hitherto been held sacred, and first and foremost amongst them that fetish, law.
The critics analyze the sources of law, and find there either a god, product of the terrors of the savage, and stupid, paltry, and malicious as the priests who vouch for its supernatural origin, or else, bloodshed, conquest by fire and sword. They study the characteristics of law, and instead of perpetual growth corresponding to that of the human race, they find its distinctive trait to be immobility, a tendency to crystallize what should be modified and developed day by day.

The Rickover Effect (1992)
Context: One must permit his people the freedom to seek added work and greater responsibility. In my organization, there are no formal job descriptions or organization charts. Responsibilities are defined in a general way, so that people are not circumscribed. All are permitted to do as they think best and to go to anyone and anywhere for help. Each person is then limited only by his own ability.

1963, Ich bin ein Berliner
Context: What is true of this city is true of Germany — real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people. You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

IX, 31
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX
Context: Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.

Dissenting in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
Judicial opinions

The Spirit of Love (1752) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/love/files/love1.htm.
Context: Now the Spirit of Love has this Original. God, as considered in himself in his Holy Being, before any thing is brought forth by him or out of him, is only an eternal Will to all Goodness. This is the one eternal immutable God, that from Eternity to Eternity changeth not, that can be neither more nor less nor any thing else but an eternal Will to all the Goodness that is in himself, and can come from him. The Creation of ever so many Worlds or Systems of Creatures adds nothing to, nor takes any thing from this immutable God. He always was and always will be the same immutable Will to all Goodness. So that as certainly as he is the Creator, so certainly is he the Blesser of every created Thing, and can give nothing but Blessing, Goodness, and Happiness from himself because he has in himself nothing else to give. It is much more possible for the Sun to give forth Darkness, than for God to do, or be, or give forth anything but Blessing and Goodness. Now this is the Ground and Original of the Spirit of Love in the Creature; it is and must be a Will to all Goodness, and you have not the Spirit of Love till you have this Will to all Goodness at all Times and on all Occasions. You may indeed do many Works of Love and delight in them, especially at such Times as they are not inconvenient to you, or contradictory to your State or Temper or Occurrences in Life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the Spirit of your Life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. For every Spirit acts with Freedom and Universality according to what it is. It needs no command to live its own Life, or be what it is, no more than you need bid Wrath be wrathful. And therefore when Love is the Spirit of your Life, it will have the Freedom and Universality of a Spirit; it will always live and work in Love, not because of This or That, Here or There, but because the Spirit of Love can only love, wherever it is or goes or whatever is done to it. As the Sparks know no Motion but that of flying upwards, whether it be in the Darkness of the Night or in the Light of the Day, so the Spirit of Love is always in the same Course; it knows no Difference of Time, Place, or Persons, but whether it gives or forgives, bears or forbears, it is equally doing its own delightful Work, equally blessed from itself. For the Spirit of Love, wherever it is, is its own Blessing and Happiness because it is the Truth and Reality of God in the Soul, and therefore is in the same Joy of Life and is the same Good to itself, everywhere and on every Occasion.

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Context: Our American government was the result of an effort to establish institutions under which the people as a whole should have the largest possible advantages. Class and privilege were outlawed, freedom and opportunity were guaranteed. They undertook to provide conditions under which service would be adequately rewarded, and where the people would own their own property and control their own government. They had no other motive. They were actuated by no other purpose. If we are to maintain what they established, it is important to understand the foundation on which they built, and the claims by which they justified the sovereign rights and royal estate of every American citizen.

Introduction
The Female Eunuch (1970)
Context: The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well. It is unlikely that the techniques of liberation spontaneously adopted by women will be in such fierce conflict as exists between warring self-interests and conflicting dogmas, for they will not seek to eliminate all systems but their own. However diverse they may be, they need not be utterly irreconcilable, because they will not be conquistatorial.

The Pathway of Peace (1923)
Context: It is not surprising that many should be captivated by the proposal, with its delusive simplicity and adequacey, for the outlawry of war. War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals. The suggestion, however futile in itself, has at least the merit of bringing us to the core of the problem. Even among its sponsors appear at once the qualifications which reflect the old distinction, so elaborately argued by Grotius, between just and unjust wars. "The grounds of war," said he, " are as numerous as those of judicial actions. For where the power of law ceases, there war begins." He found the justifiable causes generally assigned for war to be three — defense, indemnity, and punishment. War is self-help, and the right to make war has been recognized as the corollary of independence, the permitted means by which injured nations protect their territory and maintain their rights. International law leaves aggrieved states who cannot obtain redress for their wrongs by peaceful means to exact it by force. If war is outlawed, other means of redress of injuries must be provided. Moreover, few, if any, intend to outlaw self-defense, a right still accorded to individuals under all systems of law. To meet this difficulty, the usual formula is limited to wars of aggression. But justification for war, as recently demonstrated, is ready at hand for those who desire to make war, and there is rarely a case of admitted aggression, or where on each side the cause is not believed to be just by the peoples who support the war.
There is a further difficulty that lies deeper. There is no lawgiver for independent States. There is no legislature to impose its will by majority vote, no executive to give effect even to accepted rules. The outlawry of war necessarily implies a self-imposed restraint, and free peoples, jealous of their national safety, of their freedom of opportunity, of the rights and privileges they deem essential to their well-being, will not forego the only sanction at their command in extreme exigencies. The restraints they may be willing to place upon themselves will always be subject to such conditions as will leave them able to afford self-protection by force, and in this freedom there is abundant room for strife sought to be justified by deep-seated convictions of national interests, by long-standing grievances by the apprehension of aggression to be forestalled. The outlawry of war, by appropriate rule of law making war a crime, requires the common accord needed to establish and maintain a rule of international law, the common consent to abandon war; and the suggested remedy thus implies a state of mind in which no cure is needed. As the restraint is self-imposed it will prove to be of avail only while there is a will to peace.

"On Freedom of Speech and the Press", Pennsylvania Gazette (17 November 1737) http://books.google.de/books?id=HptPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA431&dq=pillar.
Context: Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

"Conversation with Systematic Liberalism," Forum (September 1961). <!-- p. 6. ; also in Friedrich Hayek : A Biography (2003) by Alan O. Ebenstein-->
1960s–1970s
Context: nowiki>[Apartheid law in South Africa] appears to be a clear and even extreme instance of that discrimination between different individuals which seems to me to be incompatible with the reign of liberty. The essence of what I said [in The Constitution of Liberty] was really the fact that the laws under which government can use coercion are equal for all responsible adult members of that society. Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race, or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal.

2000s, God Hates Canada (2008)
Context: Canada is a filthy country run by fags, which has Draconian laws making it a crime to preach the Gospel there. All of these cowardly kissy-poo preachers who telecast their milquetoast sermons into Canada have to edit out every single word critical of fags -- snip, snip, snip -- or the fag officials of Canada will arrest and criminally prosecute the Canadian affiliates, and shut down their stations! There's no freedom of speech in Canada. There's no freedom of religion in Canada. It is against the law to read the Bible in Canada.

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_373 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement
The 1930s
Context: I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost, who never flinched under the strain of last week—I do not grudge them the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

Debating Linus Pauling, in The Nuclear Bomb Tests...Is Fallout Overrated? : Fallout and Disarmament KQED-TV, San Francisco (20 February 1958) http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/peace/papers/1958p2.1.html
Context: I don't want to kill anybody. I am passionately opposed to killing, but I'm even more passionately fond of freedom. The freedom of Dr. Pauling and of myself expressing our opinions freely on any subject, however broad, however far removed of our proper competence, but particularly, to be able to express our opinions in the fields we really know; this would not be possible in Russia.

Source: Protection or Free Trade? (1886), Ch. 2
Context: When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom. That those who advocate any extension of freedom choose to go no further than suits their own special purpose is no reason why freedom itself should be distrusted.

1930s, Fireside Chat in the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards (1938)
Context: And I am concerned about the attitude of a candidate or his sponsors with respect to the rights of American citizens to assemble peaceably and to express publicly their views and opinions on important social and economic issues. There can be no constitutional democracy in any community which denies to the individual his freedom to speak and worship as he wishes. The American people will not be deceived by anyone who attempts to suppress individual liberty under the pretense of patriotism. This being a free country with freedom of expression — especially with freedom of the press — there will be a lot of mean blows struck between now and Election Day. By "blows" I mean misrepresentation, personal attack and appeals to prejudice. It would be a lot better, of course, if campaigns everywhere could be waged with arguments instead of blows.

The 8th Habit : From Effectiveness to Greatness‎ (2004)
Context: Principles are universal — that is, they transcend culture and geography. They're also timeless, they never change — principles such as fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service, contribution. Different cultures may translate these principles into different practices and over time may even totally obscure these principles through the wrongful use of freedom. Nevertheless, they are present. Like the law of gravity, they operate constantly.

p. 47

In China, p. 362.
1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)
Context: Looking back over the whole policy of reconstruction, it seems to me that the wisest thing would have been to have continued for some time the military rule. Sensible Southern men see now that there was no government so frugal, so just, and fair as what they had under our generals. That would have enabled the Southern people to pull themselves together and repair material losses. As to depriving them, even for a time, of suffrage, that was our right as a conqueror, and it was a mild penalty for the stupendous crime of treason. Military rule would have been just to all, to the negro who wanted freedom, the white man who wanted protection, the northern man who wanted Union. As state after state showed a willingness to come into the Union, not on their own terms but upon ours, I would have admitted them. This would have made universal suffrage unnecessary, and I think a mistake was made about suffrage. It was unjust to the negro to throw upon him the responsibilities of citizenship, and expect him to be on even terms with his white neighbor. It was unjust to the north. In giving the south negro suffrage, we have given the old slave-holders forty votes in the electoral college. They keep those votes, but disfranchise the negroes. That is one of the gravest mistakes in the policy of reconstruction. It looks like a political triumph for the south, but it is not. The southern people have nothing to dread more than the political triumph of the men who led them into secession. That triumph was fatal to them in 1860. It would be no less now. The trouble about military rule in the south was that our people did not like it. It was not in accordance with our institutions. I am clear now that it would have been better for the north to have postponed suffrage, reconstruction, state governments, for ten years, and held the south in a territorial condition. It was due to the north that the men who had made war upon us should be powerless in a political sense forever. It would have avoided the scandals of the state governments, saved money, and enabled the northern merchants, farmers, and laboring men to reorganize society in the south. But we made our scheme, and must do what we can with it. Suffrage once given can never be taken away, and all that remains for us now is to make good that gift by protecting those who have received it.

As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 47
General sources
Context: So long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many you have not yet approached freedom or tasted its nectar… But I do not mean by this that we ought to be shameless before all men and to do what we ought not; but all that we refrain from and all that we do, let us not do or refrain from merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honorable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us.

1961, UN speech
Context: I come here today to look across this world of threats to a world of peace. In that search we cannot expect any final triumph — for new problems will always arise. We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems — for conformity is the jailor of freedom, and the enemy of growth. Nor can we expect to reach our goal by contrivance, by fiat or even by the wishes of all.
But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone. If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Civil Courage, p. 5.
Context: What lies behind the complaint about the dearth of civil courage? In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves. To attribute this simply to personal cowardice would be too facile a psychology; its background is quite different. In a long history, we Germans have had to learn the need for and the strength of obedience. In the subordination of all personal wishes and ideas to the tasks to which we have been called, we have seen the meaning and greatness of our lives. We have looked upwards, not in servile fear, but in free trust, seeing in our tasks a call, and in our call a vocation. This readiness to follow a command from "above" rather than our own private opinions and wishes was a sign of legitimate self-distrust. Who would deny that in obedience, in their task and calling, the Germans have again and again shown the utmost bravery and self-sacrifice? But the German has kept his freedom — and what nation has talked more passionately of freedom than the Germans, from Luther to the idealist philosophers? — by seeking deliverance from self-will through service to the community. Calling and freedom were to him two sides of the same thing. But in this he misjudged the world; he did not realize that his submissiveness and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends. When that happened, the exercise of the calling itself became questionable, and all the moral principles of the German were bound to totter. The fact could not be escaped that the Germans still lacked something fundamental: he could not see the need for free and responsible action, even in opposition to the task and his calling; in its place there appeared on the one hand an irresponsible lack of scruple, and on the other a self-tormenting punctiliousness that never led to action. Civil courage, in fact, can grow only out of the free responsibility of free men. Only now are the Germans beginning to discover the meaning of free responsibility. It depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.

As quoted by Christoph Lehermayr, Der Sohn des Schahs spricht exklusiv mit NEWS.at: "Ich bin bereit, Konig zu werden" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=397&page=3, NEWS.at, September 15, 2009.
Interviews, 2009

Statement by Reza Pahlavi of Iran - Democracy & Security Conference http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=108&page=4, Prague, Czech Republic, Jun. 5, 2007.
Speeches, 2007

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

Iran: Unleashing Her Potential Through Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=465&page=1, Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, Johns Hopkins University, Oct. 12, 2010.
Speeches, 2010

Excerpted Comments Made by Reza Pahlavi of Iran to a Group of Prominent American Business Leaders in New York City http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=414&page=2, Dec. 9, 2009.
Speeches, 2008-2009

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

"Iran-US Relations At a New Cross Roads" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=351&page=3, University of California, Irving, May 6, 2009.
Speeches, 2008-2009

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

Steve Jobs

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9672844-people-wealth-consists-upon-their-freedom-individual-resources-and-good

2005, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (17 September 2005)

The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Ahmadinejad United Nations Speech: Full Text Transcript, https://www.ibtimes.com/ahmadinejad-united-nations-speech-full-text-transcript-317114 International Business Times, 22 Oct 2011
2011

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Translated and Annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Berkley, pp. 28.
Islam and the imperialists

Book III, "Of Obedience"
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 1

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, quoted by P.V. Rao, The thinking theologist, Indian Express, 7.1.1996, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.99

Sita Ram Goel: Defence of Hindu Society (1983)

The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Twitter, 12:00 AM · Sep 2, 2019 https://mobile.twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1168161822014238720

Election address for the 1885 general election, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1848&ndash;1905 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 72
President of the Local Government Board

Election address for the 1885 general election, quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1848&ndash;1905 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 72
President of the Local Government Board

Exploitation of Labor (1967)

Source: Anarchy and Christianity (1988), p. 39

Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 44

Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 17

Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume I, (1999), p. 11

India in Transition (1918)

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy (1833) [Translated from the German by Andrew Bowie]
S - Z

Farewell speech to the U.S. Senate (2018)

p10, 3rd principle of the 12 Principles of EPIC
I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty (1933)