“They have lost the ideal of the Land of the Free. Freedom demands initiative, courage, the need to decide what life must mean to oneself. To them, that is terror.”
John: Act 3, Scene 2.
Days Without End (1933)
Context: I listen to people talking about this universal breakdown we are in and I marvel at their stupid cowardice. It is so obvious that they deliberately cheat themselves because their fear of change won't let them face the truth. They don't want to understand what has happened to them. All they want is to start the merry-go-round of blind greed all over again. They no longer know what they want this country to be, what they want it to become, where they want it to go. It has lost all meaning for them except as pig-wallow. And so their lives as citizens have no beginnings, no ends. They have lost the ideal of the Land of the Free. Freedom demands initiative, courage, the need to decide what life must mean to oneself. To them, that is terror. They explain away their spiritual cowardice by whining that the time for individualism is past, when it is their courage to possess their own souls which is dead — and stinking! No, they don't want to be free. Slavery means security — of a kind, the only kind they have courage for. It means they need not to think. They have only to obey orders from owners who are, in turn, their slaves!
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Eugene O'Neill36
American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature 1888–1953Related quotes
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)
André Gide book The Immoralist
Savoir se libérer n'est rien; l'ardu, c'est savoir être libre. <br class="br">The Immoralist, Chapter 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=MPmRAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Savoir+se+lib%C3%A9rer+n'est+rien+l'ardu+c'est+savoir+%C3%AAtre+libre%22&jtp=17#v=onepage (1902) <br class="br">The Immoralist (1902)
Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations
As quoted by Robert A. Fitton (editor) in Leadership: Quotations From the Military Tradition (1990), p. 126
Max Stirner (1806–1856) German philosopher
Attributed in Forbes Vol 38 Iss. 2 (1936) p. 18, and in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 275
Ted Cruz (1970) American politician
2010s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (July 20, 2016)
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament
This quotation appeared in an article by Margaret Thatcher, "The Moral Foundations of Society" ( Imprimis, March 1995 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-moral-foundations-of-society/), which was an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had given at Hillsdale College in November 1994. Here is the actual passage from Thatcher's article:<br><blockquote>[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.</blockquote><br>The italicized passage above originated with Thatcher. In characterizing the Athenians in the article she cited Sir Edward Gibbon, but she seems to have been paraphrasing statements in "Athens' Failure," a chapter of classicist Edith Hamilton's book The Echo of Greece (1957), pp. 47–48 http://www.ergo-sum.net/books/Hamilton_EchoOfGreece_pp.47-48.jpg). <br class="br">Misattributed
Anthony Lewis book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate
[186, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate; A Biography of the First Amendment, Basic Books, 2007, 0465039170]
Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist
Solway, Diane. “Enforced Disappearance.” W Magazine, November 2011.
2010-, 2011