Quotes About Freedom

If one knew the truth how could there be freedom? If hell and paradise were in the middle of the marketplace, everyone would be a saint.

A lion attacks a herd of zebras and kills one. The frightened zebras run for a while and then they stop and start to graze again. Do they have a choice?

The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing.

Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape....For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place.

She was considered timid and morose. Only in the country, her skin tanned by the sun and her belly full of ripe fruit, running through the fields with Pedro Tercero, was she smiling and happy. Her mother said that that was the real Blanca, and that the other one, the one back in the city, was a Blanca in hibernation.

I felt an unrelenting restlessness. It was the first time I had ever experienced jealousy, and that emotion clung to my skin day and night like a dark stain, a contamination I could not shed; it became so unbearable that when finally I rid myself of it, I was freed forever of the desire to possess another person or the temptation ever to belong to anyone.

Because I have time to spare, and for the first time in my life nobody expects anything of me. I don't have to prove anything, I'm not rushing everywhere; each day is a gift I enjoy to the fullest.

Barrabas came to us by the sea.

Words are free, she used to say, and she appropriated them; they were all hers. She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.

People do not belong to others, either. How can the huincas buy and sell people if they do not own them. Sometimes the boy went two or three days without speaking a word, surly, and not eating, and when asked what was the matter, the answer was always the same: There are content days and there are sad days. Each person is a master of his silence.

El espíritu se le fue desprendiendo en la misma medida en que le germinaron las alas

La Lowell wanted nothing; she lived for the day, unfettered, free, fearless; she wasn't afraid of poverty, loneliness, or infirmity. She accepted everything with good grace; for her, life was an entertaining voyage that inevitably led to old age and death. There was no point in accumulating wealth since in the end, she maintained, we all go to the grave in our birthday suit.

I realized that she had simply fulfilled her mission in this life and that she had escaped another dimension where her spirit, finally free of its material burden, would be more at home

Long before the Europeans arrived in Africa, the blacks were enslaving each other. They still do," said Valmorain. "Just as whites are enslaving each other, monsieur," the physician countered. "Not all Negroes are slaves, nor all slaves black. Africa is a continent of free people. Millions of Africans are subjected to slavery but many more are free. Slavery is not their destiny, just as is also the case with thousands of whites who are slaves.

How would I run with my bad leg? And what would become of the people who need my care? Besides, it doesn't mean anything for me to be free and everyone else slaves, the healer answered. Tete hadn't thought of that, and it kept buzzing around her brain like a bottlefly. She talked about it with her godmother many times, but she was never able to accept the idea that her freedom was irreparably bound to that of the other slaves.

A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead,, that is their incentive.

Tal vez la vejez es otro comienzo, tal vez se pueda volver al tiempo mágico de la infancia, ese tiempo anterior al pensamiento lineal y a los prejuicios, cuando percibía el universo con los sentidos exaltados de un demente y era libre para creer lo increíble y explorar mundos que después, en la época de la razón, desaparecieron.

Because I have time to spare, and for the first time in my life nobody expects anything of me. I don't have to prove anything. I'm not rushing anywhere; each day is a gift I enjoy to the fullest.

They taught using an Italian system of experimental education in which the students did whatever the fuck we wanted.

It was then that I understood that the days of Colonel Garcia and all those like him are numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women.

nada crece en la penumbra de los secretos, el amor necesita luz y espacio para expandirse

La condición femenina es una desgracia, hija, es como tener piedras atadas a los tobillos, no se puede volar.

My old age is a precious gift. My brain still works. I like my brain. I feel lighter. I am free of self-doubt, irrational desires, useless complexes, and other deadly sins that are not worth the trouble. I am letting go…letting go. I should have started earlier.

Words are free, she tried to say, and she appropriated them; they were all hers.