“We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or to educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory.”

—  Karl Hess

As quoted in “From Far Right to Far Left,” Tames Boyd, The New York Times Magazine (Sunday) (Dec. 6, 1970) p. 305

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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American journalist 1923–1994

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