Freedom quotes
2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside freedom — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity - for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?"
"It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices."
"Every subject's duty is the Kings, but every subject's soul is his own."
"Liberty is its own reward."
"The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come."
"Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure."
"If you cannot be free be as free as you can."
"He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience."
"I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer."
"Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others."
"Once people who have been deprived of basic freedom taste a little of it, they want all of it."
"Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting."
"Physical existence is so cramped.We grow old and bent over like embryos.Nine months passes;it is time to be born. The lamb wants to graze green daylight. There are ways of being born twice,of coming to where you fly,not individually like birds, but as the sun moves with his bride,sincerity."
"A man who is willing to accept restriction and barriers and is not afraid of them is free. A man who does nothing but fight restrictions and barriers will usually be trapped."
"I see neither bravery nor sacrifice in destroying life or property, for offense or defense."
"The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity."
"The Liberty Bell is "a very significant symbol for the entire democratic world.""
"The people will learn to feel the dignity of man. They will not merely demand their rights, which have been trampled in the dust, but themselves will take them - make them their own."
"America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant. Now that the republic--the res- publica--has been settled, it is time to look after the res- privata,--the private state,--to see, as the Roman Senate charged its consuls, "ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti caperet," that the private state receive no detriment."
"Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste."
