Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.
“To believe in predestination is to deprive us of our free will. No freedom, but we are all slaves to our actions.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Mwanandeke Kindembo 1044
Congolese author 1996Related quotes
2000s, 2003, Address to the National Endowment for Democracy (November 2003)
Bk. IX, ch. 1
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
Context: In historical events great men — so-called — are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.
Speech in Yorkshire (15 March 1982), quoted in Paul Routledge, "Scargill urges strike against Tebbit Bill", The Times (16 March 1982), p. 2
Young India (15 December 1921)
1920s
"Appeal to Nobles", (June 1853), Imperial Russia, A Source Book 1700-1917
Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation