Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

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

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

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

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

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

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

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

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

In the United States, we can do almost anything we want. It’s not like Egypt, where you’re going to get murdered by the security forces.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

We can’t equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

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

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.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

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.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

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

Now I do whatever I want.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.

Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Capitalism has worked very well. Anyone who wants to move to North Korea is welcome.

Freedom without limits is just a word.

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

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

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.