I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

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

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end.

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

While discipline and freedom seem like they sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, they are actually very connected.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

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

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus‘ famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

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

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

I’m a businessman as well as an entertainer. The reason why is because I want to own whatever I’m doing. I don’t want to work for other people forever.

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.

True liberal government is founded on the emancipation of men.

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

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

I was a little girl in World War II and I’m used to being freed by Americans.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

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

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

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

At the end of the day, the TV show is the best job in the world. I get to go anywhere I want, eat and drink whatever I want. As long as I just babble at the camera, other people will pay for it. It’s a gift.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

The Bill of Rights is not an a la carte menu.

Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he be free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.

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.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

It’s like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist.

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

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

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.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

For me, it’s enough that I have the first and last word.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

I don’t want followers.

Work alone is noble.

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.

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.

Mandela’s heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

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

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.