Every country must be absolutely free to adopt the type of economic, political and social system that it considers convenient.

We can’t allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world’s worst weapons.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

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

Let us ask ourselves, ‚What kind of people do we think we are?‘ And let us answer, ‚Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.‘

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

There’s a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you’re self-propelled and decide exactly where to go. If you see something that catches your eye to the left, you can veer off there, which isn’t so easy in a car, and you can’t cover as much ground walking.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don’t like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don’t like to be shaped by society.

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.

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

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

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

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

If you’re a surfer, you just want to surf. You don’t know if anyone’s going to see you, and you don’t really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling.

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

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.

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.

I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

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.

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

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

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.

To be frank, it sometimes seems that the American idea of freedom has more to do with my freedom to do what I want than your freedom to do what you want. I think that, in Europe, we’re probably better at understanding how to balance those competing claims, though not a lot.

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don’t need to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

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

There is no such thing as part freedom.

You can’t generalise about an entire country, but I like the energy of British men.

Fidelity and allegiance sworn to the King is only such a fidelity and obedience as is due to him by the law of the land; for were that faith and allegiance more than what the law requires, we would swear ourselves slaves and the King absolute; whereas, by the law, we are free men, notwithstanding those oaths.

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

To recruit staff, I traveled all over the country talking with people who had been working on one or another aspect of the atomic-energy enterprise and people in radar work, for example, and underwater sound, telling them about the job, the place that we are going to, and enlisting their enthusiasm.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.