“None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.”
Source: What America Means to Me (1943), Ch. 4
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Pearl S. Buck 95
American writer 1892–1973Related quotes
Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 10
Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)
Context: As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
Zebulon
Song lyrics, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010)
“I have always been singularly free of envy, jealousy, covetousness; I but vaguely understand them.”
"Autobiographical Sketch" (1939) http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ckank/FultonsLair/013/nock/biography.html; published in The State of the Union : Essays in Social Criticism (1991), edited by Charles H. Hamilton, p. 26
Context: I may mention one or two characteristic traits as having no virtue whatever, because they are mine by birth, not by acquisition. I have always been singularly free of envy, jealousy, covetousness; I but vaguely understand them. Having no ambition, I have always preferred the success of others to my own, and had more pleasure in it. I never had the least desire for place or prominence, least of all for power; and this was fortunate for me because the true individualist must regard power over others as preeminently something to be loathed and shunned.
"Honest People Have Rights, Too" (8 February 1960).
Scientology Bulletins
Free speech in an age of identity politics (2015)
Context: To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged.... This is why free speech is essential not simply to the practice of democracy, but to the aspirations of those groups who may have been failed by the formal democratic processes; to those whose voices may have been silenced by racism, for instance. The real value of free speech, in other words, is not to those who possess power, but to those who want to challenge them. And the real value of censorship is to those who do not wish their authority to be challenged. The right to ‘subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism’ is the bedrock of an open, diverse society. Once we give up such a right in the name of ‘tolerance’ or ‘respect’, we constrain our ability to challenge those in power, and therefore to challenge injustice.
