freedom quotes

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

We are a nation founded as a rebuke to tyranny. A nation of revolutionaries who refused sovereign reign from afar. Hear me – we’re a nation that says give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A nation built on our differences, guided by the belief that we’re all created equal.

We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what’s right. Freedom is right.

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

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.

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.

Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

I have the space and liberty to create.

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America’s servicemen and women.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

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.

I could have spent eight years doing anything, and at some level, it would have been fine. I could have focused on flowers. I could have focused on decor. I could have focused on entertainment. Because any First Lady, rightfully, gets to define her role. There’s no legislative authority; you’re not elected. And that’s a wonderful gift of freedom.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

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

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‚Ich bin ein Berliner!‘

The highly functional infrastructure that surrounds us, particularly in the West, is a gift from our ancestors: the comparatively uncorrupt political and economic systems, the technology, the wealth, the lifespan, the freedom, the luxury, and the opportunity.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

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

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.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

When I don’t feel free and can’t do what I want I just react. I go against it.

The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

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.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

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.

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

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

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

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

People have more freedom to bring more of their personal qualities into the role they play once they have established themselves and their competence is no longer in question. But this is always within limits.

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

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

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

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

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.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.