"For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect."
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Freedom quotes
Freedom
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Freedom quotes (page 52 of 118)
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"We have used up all our inherited freedom, like the young bird the albumen in the egg. It is not an era of repose. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them."
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"The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good."
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"What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise of a few individuals, that is brave and practical; but as the enterprise of the State, it is cowardice and imbecility. What odds where we squat, or bow much ground we cover? It is not the soil that we would make free, but men."
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"The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to fall into any pit or box-trap set therein."
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"Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? Free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are perfect slaves."
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"There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law."
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"What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?"
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"It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver."
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"The English did not come to America from a mere love of adventure, nor to truck with or convert the savages, nor to hold offices under the crown, as the French to a great extent did, but to live in earnest and with freedom."
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"The man who takes the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the lawmaker."
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"It is not every man who can be a Christian, even in a very moderate sense, whatever education you give him. It is a matter of constitution and temperament, after all. He may have to be born again many times. I have known many a man who pretended to be a Christian, in whom it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for it. It is not every man who can be a free man, even."
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"We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free."
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"Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage."
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"People can be in general pretty well trusted, of course--with the clock of their freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do here--to keep an eye on the fleeting hour."
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"The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity."
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"Shackled heart, free spirit.--Whoever binds his heart tightly and imprisons it may indulge his spirit in many liberties: I have already said that once. But no one believes me unless he already knows."
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"Denn was ist Freiheit? Dasz man den Willen zur Selbstverantwortlichkeit hat."
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"A man can be free without being great, but no man can be great without being free."
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"All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must begin in blood."
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