The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

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

I can do whatever I want.

I don’t live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.

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

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

The best road to progress is freedom’s road.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

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.

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don‘ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.

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

Girls shouldn’t worry about being the equal of men in the business world.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

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.

We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free.

To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

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

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

We are all alike, on the inside.

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

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

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.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

I want to support other women because of the opportunities I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of opportunities. What I try as a female director is to do the best job I can and, in the meantime, bring attention to as many other female directors and writers as I can.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

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.

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Sikhs. I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Christians. All the citizens, all the voters, are my countrymen.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

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

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

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

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

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

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone.

I am the freest author in the world.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.