Quotes About Freedom

Freedom is always associated with risk taking, whether it leads to it or comes from it.

George Santayana: A man is morally free when Ã¢â'¬Â¦ he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.

Being self-owned is a state of mind.

You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, citing him: "It seemed, wrote Machiavelli, that in the midst of murders and civil wars, our republic became stronger [and] its citizens infused with virtues.… A little bit of agitation gives resources to souls and what makes the species prosper isn't peace, but freedom.

If you want to understand how vapid are the current modernistic arguments (and understand your existential priorities), consider the difference between lions in the wild and those in captivity. Lions in captivity live longer; they are technically richer, and they are guaranteed job security for life, if these are the criteria you are focusing on …

what is made to fly will not do well trapped on the ground

Compromising is condoning. The only modern dictum I follow is one by George Santayana: A man is morally free when Ã¢â'¬Â¦ he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity. This is not just an aim but an obligation.

Only he who is free with his time is free with his opinion.

You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else's narrative.

You have far more control over your life if you decide on your criterion by yourself.

Only the autodidacts are free. And not just in school matters—those who decommoditize, detouristify their lives.

A man is morally free when … he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.

But he left us with a good lesson: never trust the words of a man who is not free.

Missing a train is only painful if you run after it. Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that is what you are seeking.

but I am free to choose a profession where I am not a slave to external pressure.

you can decide whether to be (relatively) poor, but free of your time, or rich but as dependent as a slave.

a free person does not need to win arguments—just win.

if wealth is giving you fewer options instead of more (and more varied) options, you're doing it wrong.

Effectively, there is no democracy without such an unconditional symmetry in the rights to express yourself, and the gravest threat is the slippery slope in the attempts to limit speech on grounds that some of it may hurt some people's feelings.

In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist. Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use. "Of all your meals, I want nothing." He ran away and is still running.*3 The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?

What they call play (gym, travel, sports) looks like work; the harder they try, the more captive they are.

you can practice your freedom of religion so long as you allow me to practice mine; you have the right to contradict me so long as I have the right to contradict you.

This argument is not against adopting governmental educational policies for noble aims such as reducing inequality in the population, allowing the poor to access good literature and read Dickens, Victor Hugo, or Julien Gracq, or increasing the freedom of women in poor countries, which happens to decrease the birth rate. But then one should not use the excuses of "growth" or "wealth" in such matters.