Quotes About Freedom

I have never described, even in the diary, the act of self-murder which takes place after my being with people. A sense of shame for the most trivial defect, lack, slip, error, for every statement made, or for my silence, for being too gay or too serious, for not being earthy enough, or for being too passionate, for not being free, or being too impulsive, for not being myself or being too much so.

In between our quarrels we are acutely happy. Hell and heaven all at once. We are at once free and enslaved.

I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.

The relief of opening one's hand and letting go was immense. But soon after, I tightened again. A desire for revenge, a strange revenge.

I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.

I have no brakes on...analysis is for those who are paralyzed by life.

Many couples, many people, are not living with real human beings, but with their ghosts. Who has not followed for years the spell of a particular tone of voice, from voice to voice, as the fetishist follows a beautiful foot, scarcely seeing the woman herself? A voice, a mouth, an eye, all stemming from the original fountain of our first desire, directing it, enslaving us, until we choose to unravel the fatal web and free ourselves.

The inferior man regulates his life by externals: inasmuch as he is constrained by desire for long life, reputation, riches, rank or offspring, he is not free. The superior man is of another sort, and of him it may be said, with Chuan Tzu, 'that they live in accordance with their own nature. In the whole world they have no equal. They regulate their life by inward things.

Free thought is a passion; it is much rather the thoughts than ourselves that are free.

Not my way of salvation, to surrender the world! Rather for me the taste of Infinite Freedom While yet I am bound by a thousand bonds to the wheel . . . In each glory of sound and sight and scent I shall find Thy infinite joy abiding: My passion shall burn as the flame of salvation, The flower of my love shall become the ripe fruit of devotion.

Sinceramente, no siento miedo cuando estoy en las montañas. Por el contrario… siento cómo mis hombros se yerguen, se ensanchan; como los pájaros cuando extienden las alas, disfruto la libertad y la altitud. Sólo cuando vuelvo a la vida del llano siento el peso del mundo sobre mis hombros

Equality makes way for an increased number of free, considered choices, and an increased number of people with access to them. But choice itself isn't the same as equality...

Life's greatest gift is the freedom it leaves you to step out of it whenever you choose.

Freedom of thought is the only good that is perhaps more precious than peace, for the simple reason that, without it, peace would merely be another name of servitude.

La liberté de l'esprit est le seul bien, peut-être, qui soit plus précieux que la paix. C'est que la paix, sans elle, n'est que servitude.

The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.

Je ne me sens jamais vivre plus intensément que quand je m'échappe à moi-même pour devenir n'importe qui.

Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is knowing how to live with that freedom.

L'homme se dégagera peu à peu de ce qui le protégeait naguère; de ce qui désormais l'asservit.

et quand tu m'auras lu, jette ce livre - et sors. Je voudrais qu'il t'eût donné le désir de sortir - sortir de n'importe où, de ta ville, de ta famille, de ta chambre, de ta pensée. N'emporte pas mon livre avec toi. ... Que mon livre t'enseigne à t'intéresser plus à toi qu'a lui même, - puis à tout le reste plus qu'à toi.

To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.

When one gets up there, out of sight of all culture, of all vegetation, of everything that reminds one of the avarice and stupidity of men, one feels inclined to shout, to sing, to laugh, to cry, to fly, to dive head foremost into the sky, or to fall on one's knees.

Take me away from here and give me some reason for living. I have none left. I have freed myself. That may be. But what does it signify? This objectless liberty is a burden to me.