Quotes About Freedom

If a person did all the work of a slave but had the option of quitting at any time without being physically restrained or punished, we would not call him a slave—and this violence was often a regular part of a slave's life.

the global trend, encouraged by the UN and every human rights organization, continues toward liberalization.

Also, people single out freedom as a component of a meaningful life, whether or not it leads to a happy life.11 Like Frank Sinatra, they may have regrets, they may take blows, but they do it their way.

The freedom to complain rests on an assurance that the government won't punish or silence the complainer. The front line in democratization, then, is constraining the government from abusing its monopoly on force to brutalize its uppity citizens.

Well before Africans were enslaved by Europeans, they were enslaved by other Africans, as well as by Islamic states in North Africa and the Middle East. Some of those states did not abolish legal slavery until recently: Qatar in 1952; Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962; Mauritania in 1980.

What is enlightenment? In a 1784 essay with that question as its title, Immanuel Kant answered that it consists of "humankind's emergence from its self-incurred immaturity," its "lazy and cowardly" submission to the "dogmas and formulas" of religious or political authority.

And it explains why human beings have always been peripatetic, moving to wherever they can make the best lives. Roots are for trees; people have feet.

authority, and purity entails a reduction of violence. And that retraction is precisely the agenda of classical liberalism: a freedom of individuals from tribal and authoritarian force, and a tolerance of personal choices as long as they do not infringe on the autonomy and well-being of others.

Perpetual Peace," Kant laid out measures that would discourage leaders from dragging their countries into war.20 Together with international commerce, he recommended representative republics (what we would call democracies), mutual transparency, norms against conquest and internal interference, freedom of travel and immigration, and a federation of states that would adjudicate disputes between them.

A bumper sticker from the 1970s read, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

One of the tragic ironies of the second half of the 20th century is that when colonies in the developing world freed themselves from European rule, they often slid back into warfare, this time intensified by modern weaponry, organized militias, and the freedom of young men to defy tribal elders.77 As we shall see in the next chapter, this development is a countercurrent to the historical decline of violence, but it is also a demonstration of the role of Leviathans in propelling the decline.

When a criminal justice system works properly, it's not because rational actors know that Big Brother is watching them 24/7 and will swoop down and impose a cost that will cancel any ill-gotten gain. No democracy has the resources or the will to turn society into that kind of Skinner box.

We're all doing what we love. It's how we express ourselves - operating in a space where you don't know if something is possible or not.

You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt

We who fly do so for the love of flying. We are alive in the air with this miracle that lies in our hands and beneath our feet.

Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.

Creativity comes by breaking the rules, by saying that you're in love with the anarchist.

I let go of all I no longer love, need, or use. I adore space.

Wrong believing puts people in a prison. Right believing is a light that illuminates the path to freedom out of this prison.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.

Dance, and make joyous the love around you. Dance, and your veils which hide the Light shall swirl in a heap at your feet.

Love, and do what you will. If you keep silence, do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from punishing, do it out of love.

Never love a wild thing...If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.

Jail didn't make me find God, He's always been there. They can lock me up, but my spirit and my love can never be confined to prison walls.