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Quotes About Freedom

I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
~ Terry Pratchett
And what are you doing on it, I would like to know? Running away from home, yesno? If you were a boy I'd say are you going to seek your fortune? Can't girls seek their fortune? I think they're supposed to seek a boy with a fortune.
~ Terry Pratchett
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.
~ Terry Pratchett
Is It Frightening To Be Free? You said it. You Say To People 'Throw Off Your Chains' And They Make New Chains For Themselves? Seems to be a major human activity, yes.
~ Terry Pratchett
He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...
~ Terry Pratchett
Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave,' said Vorbis. 'So I understand,' said the Tyrant. 'I imagine that fish have no word for water.
~ Terry Pratchett
The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.
~ Terry Pratchett
Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.
~ Terry Pratchett
I heard this story once, she said, where this bloke got locked up for years and years and he learned amazin' stuff about the universe and everythin' from another prisoner who was incredibly clever, and then he escaped and got his revenge. What incredibly clever stuff do you know about the universe, Gytha Ogg? said Granny. Bugger all, said Nanny cheerfully. Then we'd better bloody well escape right now.
~ Terry Pratchett
And he won her freedom by playing beautiful music,' Roland added. 'I think he played a lute. Or maybe it was a lyre.' 'Ach, weel, that'll suit us fine,' said Daft Wullie. 'We're experts at lootin' an' then lyin' aboot it.
~ Terry Pratchett
The grags came down heavily on those who did not conform and seemed not to realize that this was like stamping potatoes into the mud to stop them growing.
~ Terry Pratchett
And a woman by herself is missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master. Trousers. That's the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: Idiot's Get yourself some trousers!
~ Terry Pratchett
Demons have existed on the Discworld for at least as long as the gods, who in many ways they closely resemble. The difference is basically the same as that between terrorists and freedom fighters.
~ Terry Pratchett
true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes.
~ Terry Pratchett
He was up against a mind that regarded truth as a reference point but certainly not as a shackle.
~ Terry Pratchett
Artists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches' sabbat. This comes from spending too much time in small rooms with the curtains drawn, instead of getting out in the healthy fresh air. For example, there's the dancing around naked. In the average temperate climate there are very few nights when anyone would dance around at midnight with no clothes on, quite apart from the question of stones, thistles, and sudden hedgehogs.
~ Terry Pratchett
Needless to say, they refused to submit to the Empire, conducting such a persistent guerrilla war that the Romans gave up hope of conquering Scotland, and the Wee Free Men remained both wee and free.
~ Terry Pratchett
Everyone should occasionally break the law in some small and delightful way, Drumknott. It's good for the hygiene of the brain.
~ Terry Pratchett
We spray our fantasies on the landscape like a dog sprays urine. It turns it into ours. Once we've invented our gods and demons, we can propitiate or exorcize them. Once we've put fairies in the sinister solitary thorn tree, we can decide where we stand in relation to it; we can hang ribbons on it, see visions under it—or bulldoze it up and call ourselves free of superstition.
~ Terry Pratchett
Of course fantasy is escapist. Most stories are. So what? Teachers are not meant to be jailers.
~ Terry Pratchett
Freedom may be mankind's natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling.
~ Terry Pratchett
if we wanted people to fly, we would have given them wings. You gave me wings when you showed me birds.
~ Terry Pratchett
Come on. Let's run away. Where to? Rincewind sighed. He'd tried to make his basic philosophy clear time and again, and people never got the message. Don't you worry about to, he said. In my experience that always takes care of itself. The important word is away.
~ Terry Pratchett
She'd never really liked the book. It seemed to her that it tried to tell her what to do and what to think. Don't stray from the path, don't open that door, but hate the wicked witch because she is wicked. Oh, and believe that shoe size is a good way of choosing a wife.
~ Terry Pratchett