Motivational Quotes

Freedom

When we were told that by freedom we understood free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood. Wealth and economic well-being, we have asserted, are the fruits of freedom, while we should have been the first to know that this kind of happiness has been an unmixed blessing only in this country, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.

- Arendt, Hannah

Best Quotes about Freedom

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.

Malcolm X

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

King Jr. Martin Luther

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

Diderot, Denis

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

Thoreau, Henry David

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

Hamilton, Edith

If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they will take sandwiches.

Orr, Lord Boyd

In the light of his vision he has found his freedom: his thoughts are peace, his words are peace and his work is peace.

Dhammapada

All we have of freedom -- all we use or know -- this our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

Kipling, Rudyard

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

10.

True obedience is true freedom.

Beecher, Henry Ward

11.

Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.

George, David Lloyd

12.

No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.

Euripides

13.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

14.

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon the labors of cabinets and foreign offices.

Cobden, Richard

15.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Colton, Charles Caleb

16.

Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.

Eliot, T. S.

17.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

18.

A slave is a free man if he is content with his lot; a free man is a slave if he seeks more than that.

19.

How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

Freedom is hunting, feeding, danger; that, that is freedom --that it is which makes the veins to swell, the breast to heave and glowaye,that is freedom, --that is pleasure --life!

Lovell, Marie

21.

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

Aristotle

22.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

Ballou, Hosea

23.

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

24.

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

Washington, George

25.

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

26.

It is my right to be uncommon. For I do not choose to be a common man, If I can, I seek opportunity. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the government look after me. I choose to take the calculated risk, to dream, to build, to fail or succeed. I choose not to barter incentive for a dole, I prefer the challenges of life to a guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the state calm of Utopia. I will not trade my freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.

27.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

28.

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

Lowell, James Russell

29.

The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.

Blum, Leon

30.

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.

Malcolm X

31.

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

Bevan, Aneurin

32.

The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty.

Pike, Albert

33.

The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

34.

There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male.

Scott, Hazel

35.

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.

Byron, Lord

36.

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

Dass, Ram

37.

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

Adler, Mortimer J.

38.

A forest bird never wants a cage.

Ibsen, Henrik

39.

To be what no one ever was, to be what everyone has been: Freedom is the mean of those extremes that fence all effort in.

Doren, Mark Van

40.

It is quite impossible to guarantee world peace. But is should be possible to guarantee world freedom.

41.

We are free to yield to truth.

Horace

42.

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.

Yeltsin, Boris

43.

We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, That man is a Red, that man is a Communist. You never heard a real American talk in that manner.

Hague, Frank

44.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

William Hazlitt

45.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

Maistre, Joseph De

46.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

Washington, George

47.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

Adams, John

48.

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

Adams, John

49.

It is quite possible for someone to choose incorrectly or to judge badly; but freedom must allow such mistakes.

Sang Kyu Shin

50.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

Bolingbroke, Henry