Freedom Quotes
When the pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed at Plymouth rock, the first permanent building put up was the brewery.
– Jim West
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Fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live. At least a while... And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance - just one chance - to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!
– William Wallace
– Charles Willett
– Sun Yat-sen
– Howard Zinn
And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have a weapons sweep and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities.
– Bill Clinton
For a long time, I have been trying to see if it would be possible to describe the history of thought as distinct both from the history of ideas (by which I mean the analysis of systems of representation) and from the history of mentalities (by which I mean the analysis of attitudes and types of action [schémas de comportement]). It seemed to me there was one element that was capable of describing the history of thought—this was what one could call the problems or, more exactly, problematizations. What distinguishes thought is that it is something quite different from the set of representations that underlies a certain behavior; it is also quite different from the domain of attitudes that can determine this behavior. Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it its meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and to question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.
– Michel Foucault
Thus the scene of the tragedy of Liberty world over must be suffering and discontent among the people. The drama moves swiftly in a torrent of words in which real purposes are disguised in portrayals of Utopia; idealism without realism; slogans, phrases and statements destructive to confidence in existing institutions; demands for violent action against slowly curable ills; unfair representation that sporadic wickedness is the system itself; searing prejudice against the former order; dismay and panic in the economic organization which feeds on its own despair. Emotions rise above reason. The man on horseback, ascending triumphantly to office on the steps of constitutional process, demands and threatens the parliament into the delegation of its sacred power. Then follows consolidation of authority through powerful propaganda in the pay of the state to transform the mentality of the people. Resentment of criticism, denunciation of all opposition, moral terrorization, all follow in sequence. The last scene is the suppression of freedom. Liberty dies of the water from her own well- free speech- poisoned by untruth. In the Epilogue the dreams of those who saw Utopia are shattered and the people find they are marching backward toward the Middle Ages- as regimented men.
– Herbert Hoover
I have condemned Khomeini's fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie as a breach of international relations and as an assault on Islam as we know it in the era of apostasy. I believe that the wrong done by Khomeini towards Islam and the Muslims is no less than that done by the author himself. As regards freedom of expression, I have said that it must be considered sacred and that thought can only be corrected by counter-thought. During the debate, I supported the boycott of the book as a means of maintaining social peace, granted that such a decision would not be used as a pretext to constrain thought.
– Naguib Mahfouz
The American Dream [is] one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions.
– Dan Rather
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And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
– John Steinbeck
It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilisation are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows.
– Alfred North Whitehead
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
– John Adams
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– John Adams
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– The Book of the Golden Precepts
– Chester Bowles
– George W. Bush
For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.
– George W. Bush
– Milton Friedman
– Mahatma Gandhi
– Bell Hooks
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– John F. Kennedy
– Aung San Suu Kyi
– A. J. Liebling
When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.
– Walter Lippmann
That which you call your soul or spirit is your conciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
– Ayn Rand
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– Ronald Reagan
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
– Patricia Sampson
My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.
– Igor Stravinsky
Yoga is a way to freedom. By its constant practice, we can free ourselves from fear, anguish and loneliness.
– Indra Devi
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When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.
– Richard Stallman
– Rick Perry
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We have a long heritage of freedom that defines America. We believe there is a Creator who blessed us with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
– Todd Akin
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We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom.
– Mohammed Morsi
– Chrisette Michele
There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who've historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.
– Hillary Clinton
The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, 'In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.'
– Paul Ryan
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