Freedom
Definition: The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
Number of Quotes: 36
No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.
Dean Acheson
I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims, ideas... cultures... and systems of
thought, we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word freedom
means than I see much evidence of in America.
Douglas Adams
To be frank, it sometimes seems that the American idea of freedom has more to do with my freedom to do what I want than your freedom to do
what you want. I think that, in Europe, we're probably better at understanding how to balance those competing claims, though not a lot.
Douglas Adams
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
John Adams
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
My failed corporate career became the fodder for the Dilbert
comic. Once it became clear I would
not be climbing any higher on the corporate ladder, it freed me to mock managers without worrying that it
would stall my career. Most failures create some sort of unplanned freedom. I took full advantage of mine.
Scott Adams
Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.
Heywood Broun
In every era, society must strike the right balance between the freedom businesses need to
compete for a market share and to make profits and the preservation of family and community values.
Hillary Clinton
Only the educated are free.
Epictetus
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to
choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Victor Frankl
That rugged individualism that is the personification of our American sense of freedom, and which we celebrate on the
Fourth of July and in our popular myths and heroes, also contributes to the breakdown of the social fabric that has always
provided a secure context for our freedoms. Freedom from
has not yet yielded to an appropriate freedom for.
Peter J. Gomes
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law,
no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
Learned Hand
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Patrick Henry
The real haves
are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others
of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real have
nots
are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the
freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
Eric Hoffer
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
John F. Kennedy
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 or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.
Spoken at inaugural address and inscribed on his memorial.
John F. Kennedy
I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the
annoyed. I myself find many - even most - things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave
lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up
signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary,
however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what public
means.
Fran Lebowitz
We sometimes take for granted the freedom and power of independent thought and action. And only after
it's been compromised, do we fully realize how fundamental it is to the pursuit of economic opportunity.
Arthur Levitt
The battle for freedom and liberty really never is over, and there are really low
points in it, but I'm not giving up, and I'm not gonna engage in phony pep talks, either.
Rush Limbaugh
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Nelson Mandela
The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.
Nelson Mandela
Freedom is a more complex and delicate thing than force. It is not as simple to live under as force is.
Thomas Mann
Sing in the tones of prayer,
Sing till the soaring soul
Shall float above the world's control
In Freedom everywhere!
Sing for the good that is to be,
Sing for the eyes that are to see
The land where man at last is free,
O sing for Liberty!
James Riley
If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never
will be. It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few to be governed.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand Russell
Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.
Chuck Schumer
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw
You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But
when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to.
Hannen Swaffer
It is a free press ... There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's
speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
Mark Twain
The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a
mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way.
Lao Tzu
The Khomeini cry for the execution of Rushdie is
an infantile cry. From the beginning of time we have seen that. To murder the thinker does not murder the thought.
Arnold Wesker
Last on Earth
