“If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. ”

—  Robert Frost

Last update July 27, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. " by Robert Frost?
Robert Frost photo
Robert Frost 265
American poet 1874–1963

Related quotes

Plautus photo

“If you are but content, you have enough to live upon with comfort.”
Si animus est aequus tibi, satis habes, qui bene vitam colas.

Aulularia, Act II, sc. 2, line 10
Aulularia (The Pot of Gold)

Edward Gibbon photo

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

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:
<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>
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).
Misattributed

Mike Godwin photo
David Icke photo

“It's amazing how everything fits together in the world of the Illuminati if you are prepared to dig deep enough.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

source, The Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses are the same Organisation, ibid.

Augusten Burroughs photo

“If you hate your life, you haven't' seen enough of it. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't' fit you.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: This Is How: Surviving What You Think You Can't

“The salt said, look by the sea,
Your tears are not enough praise,
You will find no comfort here,
In the kingdom of bang and blab.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

The Lost Son, ll. 32 - 35
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Margaret Thatcher photo

“[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.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Imprimis, "The Moral Foundations of Society" (March 1995), http://imprimisarchives.hillsdale.edu/file/archives/pdf/1995_03_Imprimis.pdf an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had delivered at Hillsdale College in November 1994. In characterizing the Athenians Thatcher was paraphrasing from "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 but in her lecture Thatcher mistakenly attributed the opinions to Edward Gibbon. Subsequently, a version of this quotation has been widely circulated on the Internet, misattributed to Gibbon.
In a later address, "The Moral Foundation of Democracy," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1sgMoYb70 given in April 1996 at a Clearwater, Florida gathering of the James Madison Institute, Thatcher delivered the same sentiment in a slightly different way: " 'In the end, more than they wanted freedom, [the Athenians] wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life. But they lost it all—security, comfort, and freedom. … When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.' There you have the germ of the dependency culture: freedom from responsibility."
Post-Prime Ministerial

Confucius photo

“The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, Chapter I, Other chapters
Variant: A scholar who loves comfort is not worthy of the name.
Source: The Analects of Confucius

James Legge photo

“The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.”

James Legge (1815–1897) missionary in China

Bk. 14, Ch. 3 (p. 193)
Translations, The Confucian Analects

Related topics