FREEDOM QUOTES V

quotations about freedom

Freedom quote

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 whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains.

SRI AUROBINDO

Thoughts and Glimpses


Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.

NELSON MANDELA

Long Walk to Freedom


Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby's head

U2

"Miracle Drug"


For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.

LILLIAN HELLMAN

The Watch on the Rhine


True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"Stanzas on Freedom"


I was a dweller amid shadows grim:
Till FREEDOM touched my yearning eyes, and lo!
Life in a shining circle, rounding rose,
As heaven on heaven goes up the jewell'd night.
New floods of passionate life swirl'd at my heart,
Like Ocean-surges rolling round the world:
And FREEDOM was my glittering Bride.

GERALD MASSEY

"To My Wife"


Freedom, we're gonna ring the bell
Freedom to rock, freedom to talk
Freedom, raise your fist and yell

ALICE COOPER

"Freedom"


Once a man has tasted freedom, he will never be content to be a slave.

WALT DISNEY

radio address, Mar. 1, 1941


The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit.

SRI AUROBINDO

Bhagavad Gita and Its Message


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


There are two kinds of freedom: one is the freedom from something, which is a reaction; and the other is not a reaction, it is "being free."

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

On Freedom


Freedom as a blessing today might, under new conditions, become a danger and a curse tomorrow. Crimes endanger the general welfare of a community. Freedom for criminals would be a menace to community interests. The community therefore forbids crime, adopts a criminal code listing a great variety of acts which are considered prejudicial to community well-being, and prescribes penalties for lawbreakers. Individuals and social groups who violate the criminal law are restrained or coerced. The nature of crime depends upon local custom or accepted practice. In this very considerable area, by common consent, freedom is officially abrogated, and restraint and coercions are relied upon to protect the community.

SCOTT NEARING

Freedom: Promise and Menace


The freedom from something is not true freedom. The freedom to do anything you want to do is also not the freedom I am talking about. My vision of freedom is to be yourself.

OSHO

Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself


I'm navigating my way down freedom's road
Trying to make my way back home
I got my foot to the floor
But she must need bleeding
This car just don't want to roll
Freedom's road must be under construction

JOHN MELLENCAMP

"Freedom's Road"


Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.

EMIL CIORAN

History & Utopia


Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.

FRIEDRICH HAYEK

Law


It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Fight Club


No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Freedom is sometimes defined as a lack of resistance or restraint. A wheel turns freely if there is very little friction in the bearing, a horse breaks free from the post to which it has been tethered, a man frees himself from the branch on which he has been caught while climbing a tree. Physical restraint is an obvious condition, which seems particularly useful in defining freedom, but with respect to important issues, it is a metaphor and not a very good one. People are indeed controlled by fetters, handcuffs, strait jackets, and the walls of jails and concentration camps, but what may be called behavioral control--the restraint imposed by contingencies of reinforcement--is a very different thing.

BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER

Beyond Freedom & Dignity