Quotes About Freedom

I felt like a pianist who'd been forced to play on a few white keys in the middle, finally allowed to run his hands all up and down the keyboard.

she'd rather be alone than cling to people she didn't care about.

The ocean was the best place. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched

the hugeness of the world was a pool to dive into, not somewhere to drown.

For most Americans, our most precious possession is citizenship in this amazing country.

My heart was acting like a prisoner in the Tower of London, banging against the walls. I had to hold my hand against it. I was afraid it would escape.

Part of me had hoped my BSC friends had planned this whole thing as a huge April Fool's joke seven months early. We'd all have a big laugh and go back to the way we were, loyal and full of group spirit. But here's the other side: even though my mind was a mess, my body felt the strangest sense of calmness, as if I'd just taken a swim on a Hawaiian beach. I felt free. Free and peaceful.

And I began to dance too.

The leaves were sun-baked lizards, stirring towards the sea that churned its chain of silver snakes, which would, if given half the chance, coil round, pull him out of this urban setting, vomit him on dry land.

Idea and image juxtapositioned, spinning between myth and rationality, the odd years spent at a right angle; if I over-reach, can I be sure of reclaiming a formula outside habitual movement? How easy it would be to finally slide over, allowing the rest to absolve itself. But remember society owes you nothing, therefore, doing yourself in isn't the answer, no reward for the resentment, and how would I know if it had proved freedom?

The freedom from self that is both the goal and the foundation of spiritual life is coincident with normal perception and cognition

can think of no right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one's own consciousness.

Is true freedom even possible? It certainly is in a momentary sense, as any mature practitioner of meditation knows, and those moments can increase in both number and duration with practice. Therefore, I see no reason why a person couldn't perfectly banish the illusion of the self. However, just the ability to meditate—to rest as consciousness for a few moments prior to the arising of the next thought—can offer a profound relief from mental suffering.

One must climb the mountain so that freedom can be found at the top. But the self is already an illusion, and that truth can be glimpsed directly, at the mountain's base or anywhere else along the path.

the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—

Consciousness is already free of everything that remotely resembles a self.

But the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—and to seek such freedom, as though it were a future state to be attained through effort, is to reinforce the chains of one's apparent bondage in each moment.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.

we are free to interpret and reinterpret the meaning of our lives.

After all, there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one's thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present.

The ultimate wisdom of enlightenment, whatever it is, cannot be a matter of having fleeting experiences. The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of well-being that is inherent to the nature of our minds. It must, therefore, be available in the context of ordinary sights, sounds, sensations, and even thoughts. Peak experiences are fine, but real freedom must be coincident with normal waking life.

To say that someone freely chose to squander his life's savings at the poker tabile is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent

Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?