FREEDOM QUOTES III
quotations about freedom
We ... would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
speech, June 1941
This is my right
A right given by God
To live a free life
To live in freedom
PAUL MCCARTNEY
"Freedom"
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The Social Contract
Freedom to reject is the only freedom.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Any existence deprived of freedom is a kind of death.
MICHEL AOUN
attributed, Dictionary of Quotations
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook L", Aphorisms
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
WILLIAM PITT
speech, Nov. 18, 1783
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
attributed, The Rebirth of a Nation
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
The Constitution of Liberty
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Conquest of Granada
I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Blood of Others
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Out of My Later Years
Since freedom is not a fixed thing that can be grasped and held once for all, but a growth, any particular society, such as our own, always appears partly free and partly unfree. In so far as it favors, in every child, the development of his highest possibilities, it is free, but where it falls short of this it is not.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
For those who have it, freedom is like oxygen, it's something we just have. Many will not understand just how precious either is until they are at risk of losing it.
JOHN DUTCHER
"Crowd turns out for parade under beautiful sunny skies Monday", Gloversville Leader-Herald, May 28, 2019
What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit.
SRI AUROBINDO
Bhagavad Gita and Its Message
To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
ANDRE GIDE
Autumn Leaves
I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
farewell address, Sep. 17, 1796
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
JAMES MADISON
speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, Jun. 6, 1788
Freedom, we're gonna ring the bell
Freedom to rock, freedom to talk
Freedom, raise your fist and yell
ALICE COOPER
"Freedom"