“Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable.”
Source: The Professor (1857), Ch. XXV
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Charlotte Brontë 83
English novelist and poet 1816–1855Related quotes

Address at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; quoted in The Independent, London (22 March 1990)

1950s, The Birth of a New Nation (1957)

"Slavery and Torture" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/02/slavery_and_tor.html, The Daily Dish (23 February 2007)
Context: Torture was necessary to maintain slavery. It was integral to slavery. You cannot have slavery without some torture or the threat of torture; and you cannot have torture without slavery. You cannot imprison a free man for ever unless you have broken him; and you can only forcibly break a man's soul by torturing it out of him. Slavery dehumanizes; torture dehumanizes in exactly the same way. The torture of human beings who have no freedom and no recourse to the courts is slavery.
Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)
Context: Thoughts and dreams don’t die. Belief in freedom and justice does not perish with imprisonment, torture or even death and tyranny do not prevail over freedom, even when they rely on the power of the state. Sitting here in the prison, I am deeply humbled by the honor you have bestowed on me and I will continue my efforts until we achieve peace, tolerance for a plurality of views, and human rights.

Die russische Revolution. Eine kritische Würdigung (1920) p. 109 <!-- and in Rosa Luxemburg - Gesammelte Werke Vol. 4, p. 359, Footnote 3, Dietz Verlag Berlin (Ost), 1983 -->
This contains probably her most famous statement: Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden, translated as "Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters."
Variant: Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
Context: Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. The essence of political freedom depends not on the fanatics of 'justice', but rather on all the invigorating, beneficial, and detergent effects of dissenters. If 'freedom' becomes 'privilege', the workings of political freedom are broken.

“Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through.”
Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When He Returns

June 26 http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2005/Jun/27-499670.html
2000s, 2005
Herodotus: History (p. 45)
Classics Revisited (1968)