Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don’t belong anymore to anyone, that I’m not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

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

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

I don’t think I ever thought of myself as Superman. But there were people who thought of me that way, and maybe I believed them a little.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

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.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

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

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve – not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country – those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy – the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.

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

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.

We are proud of the history of our country; we learned it in school and have grown up hearing of freedom, justice and human rights.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

I am the freest author in the world.

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

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

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

We can have no ’50-50′ allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

Everyone calls me Bruno; they don’t ever call me Peter – that was just my government name.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I’m someone else.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

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.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

I can’t disguise myself with a wig and dark glasses – the wheelchair gives me away.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

You can use your real identity, or you can use phone numbers for something like WhatsApp, and pseudonyms for something like Instagram. But in any of those you’re not just sharing and consuming content, you are also building relationships with people and building an understanding of people.

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian.

At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.