Freedom Quotes

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they
avoid.
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

***

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the
fatigues of supporting it.
- Thomas Paine

***

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

- David Garrick

***

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
- Rosa Luxemburg

***

The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free
beings under divine guidance.
- Joseph Marie de Maistre

***

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the
world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is
a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
- Ronald Reagan

***

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free
speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free
speech except his own.
- Herbert Hoover

***

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than
the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your
counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
- Samuel Adams

***

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
- Mahatma Gandi

***
Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are
complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so
also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his
right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.
- John Paul Stevens

***

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.
- Malcolm X

***

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

- W. E. B. Du Bois

***

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when
religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the
weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds
love and brotherhood.
- Josephine Baker

***

It [the Eiffel Tower] looked very different from the Statue of Liberty, but what
did that matter? What was the good of having the statue without the liberty?
- Josephine Baker

***

If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling
a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may
watch.
- Thurgood Marshall

***

If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and
not be talking about it.
- Sojourner Truth

***

I looked at my hands, to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was
such a glory ober everything, the sun came like gold through the trees, and over
the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
- Harriet Tubman

***

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears
of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.
- Alice Walker

***
The true free living human-being is the one that achieves his dream without
depending on someone.
- Lao Zi

***

I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.

- John Randolph

***

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.
- Richard Cobden

***

It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy,
are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are
mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
- Thomas Mann

***

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! (Speech near
the Berlin Wall, 1987)
- Ronald Reagan

***

The Constitution gives every American the right to make a damn fool of himself.
- John Ciardi

***

The gifts of God should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi.

- Medgar Evers

***

America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable
right for life. This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government
because it does not come from government, it comes from the creator of life.
- George W. Bush

***

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

- George W. Bush

***

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

***
I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.
- George W. Bush

***

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

- George W. Bush

***

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate
them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I
alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
- Robert A. Heinlein

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never
to practice either of them.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) , 1897

Freedom has a thousand charms to show that slaves, howe'er contented cannot know.
William Cowper (1731-1800)

From every mountainside let freedom ring.

Samuel Francis Smith , from the anthem "America", 1831

You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom
and truth.
Henrik Ibsen , 1882

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument
of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt , 1783

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its
ultimate reward.
Patricia Sampson

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has
his freedom.
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything.
If you're a man, you take it.
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which

neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
James A. Garfield (1831 - 1881), July 12, 1880

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways
in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela (1918 - ), 'A Long Walk to Freedom'

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can
labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), 'Out of My Later Years,' 1950

Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is
never new, fresh, innocent.
Krishnamurti

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that
respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela (1918 - )

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Aung San Suu Kyi (1945 - )

Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.

Charles Lindbergh (1902 - 1974)

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but
that could change.
Dan Quayle (1947 - ), 5/22/89

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom
fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
George Carlin (1937 - )

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Alan Dean Foster, "To the Vanishing Point"

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never
to practice either of them.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Following the Equator (1897)

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.

A. J. Liebling (1904 - 1963)

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time
defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first
aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at
all.
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must

put up with a good deal of rubbish.
Robert Jackson

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but

nothing to choose from.
Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)

Results from Laura Moncur's Motivational Quotations:

There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates
you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a
poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.
Colette (1873 - 1954), 'Freedom,' 1908

I want freedom for the full expression on my personality.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.

Mikhail Bakunin (1814 - 1876)

We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only
commitment to others.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that

comes with his freedom.
Bob Dylan (1941 - )

The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others
as well as ourselves.
Oscar Arias Sanchez (1941 - )

The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom...

Bell Hooks

The way to final freedom is within thy self.

The Book of the Golden Precepts

We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to
express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going
to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992

Albert Einstein:
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these
aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere
of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Aldous Huxley:
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol
of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not
merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.

Barbara Ehrenreich:
That's free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great
thing -- the truly democratic thing about it -- is that you don't even have to be
a player to lose.

Benjamin Franklin:
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve
neither liberty or security

C. Wright Mills:
Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely
the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the
chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the
opportunity to choose.

Charlie Daniels:
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
(written en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band,
Lynyrd Skynyrd.)

Clarence Darrow:
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's
freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
Dorothy Thompson:
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is
relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.

Dorothy Thompson:
It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that
ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.

Dorothy Thompson:
Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many
respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private
persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish,
with the general welfare.

Dwight D. Eisenhower:
We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

Edward R. Murrow:
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

Epictetus:
We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated,
but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are
free.

Eugene V. Debs:
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind
that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say
now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal
element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to
protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough
informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

Frederick Douglass:
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who
want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and
lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle
may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be
a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never
will.

Goethe:
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.

H. L. Mencken:
The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.

H. L. Mencken:
I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have
invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that
it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and
the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in
free air � that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false
progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty
of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who
yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

Henri-Fr�d�ric Amiel:
Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is
justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness.

Henry David Thoreau:

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is
also a prison.

Hodding Carter:
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is
roots; the other, wings.

James Baldwin:
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people
take, and people are as free as they want to be.

Jean-Paul Sartre:
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Jesse Jackson:
No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No
government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never
agree to surrender your dreams.

John Adams:
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to
trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Dewey:
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence,
that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of
purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about
freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the
external or physical side of activity.

John F. Kennedy:
Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always
in vain.

John F. Kennedy:
The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed
but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.

John F. Kennedy:
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign
ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to
let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is
afraid of its people.

John P. Zenger:
No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or
publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and
became slaves.

John Philpot Curran:

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the
active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of
his crime and the punishment of his guilt. (1790)

John Stuart Mill:

The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that
which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence
is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual
is sovereign.

Margaret Sanger:
A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.

Marilyn Ferguson:
Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.

Mark Twain:
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never
to practice either of them.

Mohandas K. Gandhi:
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
Molly Ivins:
It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend
the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

Noam Chomsky:
For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to
come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy
to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of
'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we
sere as willing or unwitting instruments."

Noam Chomsky:
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more
than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

Noam Chomsky:
If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe
in it at all.

Norman Thomas:
After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the
unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to
others, to win advancement.

Patrick Henry:
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as
for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Pearl S. Buck:
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of
the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Peyton Conway March:

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in
life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving
them to someone else.

Rabbi Sherwin Wine:

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its
roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom,
uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason,
contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views
patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity.
Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to
millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in
the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom,
encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every
individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor
completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who
make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational
conformity.

This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be
bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?

Ramsey Clark:
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

Robert Frost:
Freedom lies in being bold.

Rosa Luxemburg:
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Samuel Adams:
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than
the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your
counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Simone Weil:
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.

Somerset Maugham:
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the
irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose
that too.

Thomas Jefferson:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people
may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Thomas Jefferson:
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor
and bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government.

Thomas Jefferson:
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another,
and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
Thomas Jefferson:
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted
to govern themselves without a master.

Thomas Jefferson:
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions
whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics
capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction
free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven
there at all.
to the creed of any party of men
or in anything else, where I was
is the last degradation of a
but with a party, I would not go

Unknown:
[C]reative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free
from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy.

Victor Frankl:
Everything can be taken from a man but ... the last of the human freedoms - to
choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor Frankl:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the
huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been
few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that 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.

Virginia Woolf:
To enjoy freedom, if the platitude is pardonable, we have of course to control
ourselves. We must not squander our powers, helplessly and ignorantly, squirting
half the house in order to water a single rose-bush; we must train them, exactly
and powerfully, here on the very spot.

Virginia Woolf:
The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting
perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

Wendell Phillips:
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Wendy Kaminer:
Patriotism does not oblige us to acquiesce in the destruction of liberty.
Patriotism obliges us to question it, at least.

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will
be no State.
Lenin (1870 - 1924), "State and Revolution", 1919
And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what
you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America
will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), Inaugural address, January 20, 1961

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end
justifies the means.
Georges Bernanos (1888 - 1948), "Why Freedom?" The Last Essays of Georges
Bernanos, 1955

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 (1882 - 1971), Poetics of Music

In human life, art may arise from almost any activity, and once it does so, it is
launched on a long road of exploration, invention, freedom to the limits of
extravagance, interference to the point of frustration, finally discipline,
controlling constant change and growth.
Susanne Langer (1895 - 1985)

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 (1889 - 1974)

There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity.

Chester Bowles (1901 - 1986)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument
of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt

In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought.

Tiberius (42 BC - 37 AD)

Freedom is a clear conscience.

Periander

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

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965), Speech in Detroit, 7 Oct. 1952

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Alan Dean Foster, "To the Vanishing Point"
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can
labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), 'Out of My Later Years,' 1950

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Politics

Because you are in control of your life. Don't ever forget that. You are what you
are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you have made.
Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full
measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
Carl Schurz (1829 - 1906)

She gave me more than just a sweater vest that night. She gave me all this.
Nothing. She gave me nothing. That's what I need. No phone book, no Game Boy, no
pasta maker, TV Guide. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Up River, 1994

We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to
express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going
to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992

Only the educated are free.

Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), Speech, September 22, 1936

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

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point.
Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate
speech.
Justice Anthony Kennedy (1936 - )

Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.
Lawana Blackwell, The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark, 1999
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end.
Lord Acton

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything.
If you're a man, you take it.
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has
his freedom.
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never
to practice either of them.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Following the Equator (1897)

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its
ultimate reward.
Patricia Sampson

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you
you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which
they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of
ourselves.
William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people
by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden
usurpations.
James Madison (1751 - 1836)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present
his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire
population.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every
other form of freedom.
Benjamin Cardozo (1870 - 1938)

The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a
great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity,
servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by
death.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free.
First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison
you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963), Journey to Freedom (1969)

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), Speech, September 22, 1936

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person
and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the
world; it is God's gift to humanity.
George W. Bush, State of the Union address 2003

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence
and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-
wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only
of her own.
John Quincy Adams (1767 - 1848)

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers

increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the
system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986), Dune

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it
to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed
on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our
children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States
where men were free.
Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)

Results from Cole's Quotables:

Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice.
Anonymous
They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does
not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and
oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of
freedom, truth and duty.
Kahil Gibran, Spirits Rebellious

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers

increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the
system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986), Dune

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to
repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to
liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without
understanding.
Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 479
(1928)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my
comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight
in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
Ghandi, 1931

Freedom hath a thousand charms to show,

That slaves however contented never know.
Cowper

All we have of freedom -- all we use or know --

This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.
Kipling

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never
to practice either.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Alan Dean Foster, To the Vanishing Point

The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the
inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a
correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform
from within.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.

John G. Riefenbaker

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

Justice William O. Douglas

Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals
that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
Barry Goldwater

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think.
And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Bergen Evans

Nothing's ever really changed. What difference does it make whether it's the
Corporate state or the Nation state? In our struggle for freedom we still find
ourselves fighting the state.
Jay Terpstra

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time
defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first
aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at
all.
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

Supreme Court Justice William Orville Douglas

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think.
And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense (1946)

The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.

Thucydides (471 BC - 400 BC)

A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it
will never be anything but bad. . . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to bet
better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.
Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), Resistance, Rebellion and Death (1960)

The greatest lesson we can learn from the past. . . is that freedom is at the core
of every successful nation in the world.
Frederick Chiluba

Results from Rand Lindsly's Quotations:

It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much
as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living
with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery
with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with
articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to
those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for
equals.
Trevanian from the novel "Shibumi"

Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)

Make no mistake about it: Operation Desert Storm truly was a victory of good over
evil, of freedom over tyranny, of peace over war.
Dan Quayle (1947 - ), remarks at Arlington National Cemetery

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but

nothing to choose from.
Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Alan Dean Foster "To the Vanishing Point"
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
A.J. Liebling

That's part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I

think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity.
Lester Maddox, ex-governor of Georgia

Results from Poor Man's College:

The birthplace of success for each person is in his Inner-Consciousness. The

Inner-Consciousness will use whatever it is given. If constructive thoughts are
planted positive outcomes will be the result. Plant the seeds of failure and
failure will follow. And since the only real freedom a person has is the choice of
what thoughts he will feed to his Inner-Consciousness he is totally responsible
for the outcomes he gets.
Sidney Madwed

Freedom is a package deal - with it comes responsibilities and consequences.

Author Unknown

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off
our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it
ourselves. It is up to us.
A. J. Toynbee

To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most

people. It is enormously stimulating. It is small wonder that people who have been
demanding all their lives to be heard so often fall speechless when confronted
with one who gravely agrees to lend an ear. Man clamors for the freedom to express
himself and for knowing that he counts. But once offered these conditions, he
becomes frigthened.
Robert C. Murphy

Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.

Author Unknown

Freedom, then, lies only in our innate human capacity to choose between different
sorts of bondage, bondage to desire or self esteem, or bondage to the light that
lightens all our olives.
Sri Madhava

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are
made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)

There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and
powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.
Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)

It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward

journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often
easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.
Rollo May

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of fear is a freedom.

Marilyn Ferguson

Indignation boils my blood at the thought of the heritage we are throwing away; at
the thought that, with few exceptions, the fight for freedom is left to the poor,
forlorn and defenseless, and to the few radicals and revolutionaries who would
make use of liberty to destroy, rather than to maintain, American institutions.
Arthur Garfield Hays

We clearly realize that freedom's inner kingdom cannot be touched by exterior

attacks.
Vernon Howard

There is nothing more wonderful than freedom of speech.

Ilya Ehrenburg
You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's
freedom. You can be free only if I am free.
Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and
responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any
circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great
work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a
single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each
person who has known and loved it.
Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are
created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in
seeking to become like each other.
David Riesman