freedom quotes

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of ‚I know.‘ Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.

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.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

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’m a free spirit.

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

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

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well but is intensely rewarding.

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

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.

We humans for millions of years were nomadic. We associated freedom and well-being with the ability to move into open spaces, to find places more suited to hunting.

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.

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

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

I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.

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

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

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

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

Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.

The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

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

Freedom is not enough.

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

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

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.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

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

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

I groan daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh for the time when I shall drop this flesh, and be free from sin!

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

All I’m for is the liberty of the individual.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

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?

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

I am the freest author in the world.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

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.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Freedom is what everyone wants – to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

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

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.