FREEDOM QUOTES II
quotations about freedom
When we were told that by freedom we understood free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood, and all too often we have acted as though we too believed that it was wealth and abundance which were at stake in the postwar conflict between the "revolutionary" countries in the East and the West. Wealth and economic well-being, we have asserted, are the fruits of freedom, while we should have been the first to know that this kind of "happiness" was the blessing of America prior to the Revolution, and that its cause was natural abundance under "mild government," and neither political freedom nor the unchained, unbridled "private initiative" of capitalism, which in the absence of natural wealth has led everywhere to unhappiness and mass poverty. Free enterprise, in other words, has been an unmixed blessing only in America, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.
HANNAH ARENDT
On Revolution
Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Freedom from the Known
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook L", Aphorisms
The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
Witness and stand back from Nature, that is the first step to the soul's freedom.
SRI AUROBINDO
The Life Divine
The cause of Freedom is the cause of God!
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES
Edmund Burke
It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The Social Contract
I've read and heard a lot of unbelievable stuff about those times when people lived in freedom -- that is, in disorganized wildness.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
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
It is like living among snow-capped peaks with clouds wrapped around them and the sun and moon starkly shining over them... Aloneness becomes their companion, their spiritual consort, part of their being. Wherever they go they are alone, whatever they do they are alone. Whether they relate socially with friends or meditate alone ... aloneness is there all the time. That aloneness is freedom, fundamental freedom.
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA
The Myth of Freedom
The more freedom you give people to do good, the more freedom they have to do bad as well.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people.
JIMMY CARTER
Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1977
For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Watch on the Rhine
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
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
Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.
CHARLES LINDBERGH
attributed, Lindbergh
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