All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‚Ich bin ein Berliner!‘

The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable – and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power Who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

All of us are in the same place, each with our own rooms, and we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. Which is totally different than college, where they manage your schedule for you. In the NBA, you’re on your own.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

One of the things people don’t really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they’re celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic.

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: ‚This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.‘ Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‚within the limits of the law‘ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production, and the wage-slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Facts, like people, want to be free – and when they’re free, liberty is usually around the corner.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.

I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: ‚This is my country.‘

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That’s it; that’s the way we move forward. That’s how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

I’m the greatest thing that ever lived! I’m the king of the world! I’m a bad man. I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived.

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.