Quotes About Freedom

How does the light of a star set out and plunge into black eternity in its immortal course? The star dies, but the light never dies; such also is the cry of freedom.

I'll tell you what Freedom is to me. No fear.

You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

This does not mean that we need treat all as equally true: it is up to individuals and groups to make up their minds. Freedom of faith allows for rich diversity of judgements as to the truth.

Free is a man who has no desires.

When Rob J. had prepared for citizenship he'd studied the United States Constitution and marveled at its provisions. Now he saw that the genius of those who had written the Constitution was that it foresaw man's weakness of character and the continuing presence of evil in the world, and sought to make individual freedom the legal reality to which the country had to return again and again.

Ahora se daba cuenta de que el genio de aquellos que habían redactado la Constitución consistía en prevenir la debilidad de carácter del hombre y la presencia constante del mal en el mundo y convertir la libertad individual en la realidad legal a la que el país tenía que volver una y otra vez.

When they left behind all houses and the stink of too many people and stopped for an especially lavish breakfast cooked by the side of a noisy stream, each agreed that a city was not the finest place to breathe God's air and enjoy the sun's warmth.

It's ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They're totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There's about as much freedom as under Stalinism.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it's unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

I am not too happy with terms like "the left", to be honest. And I don't use it much….if by "the left" you mean people who are committed to peace and justice and freedom and so on, there can't be elements of the left opposed to workers' movement, at least under that definition.

If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all.

With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards. It is unfortunate that it remains necessary to stress these simple truths.

The social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined.

Institutional structures are legitimate insofar as they enhance the opportunity to freely inquire and create, out of inner need; otherwise, they are not.

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.

For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account.

One should attend carefully to the fear and desperation of the powerful. They understand very well the potential reach of the ultimate weapon, and only hope that those who seek a more free and just world will not gain the same understanding and put it effectively to use.

The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives, and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home.

Well, I think that what used to be called, centuries ago, wage slavery is intolerable. And I don't think people ought to be forced to rent themselves in order to survive. I think that the economic institutions ought to be run democratically, by their participants, by the communities in which they exist, and so on; and I think basically through various kinds of free association.

It's intellectual freedom when a journalist can understand that 2 + 2 = 4; that's what Orwell was writing about in 1984. Everybody here applauds that book, but nobody is willing to think about what it means. What Winston Smith [the main character] was saying is, if we can still understand that 2 + 2 = 4, they haven't taken everything away. Okay? Well, in the United States, people can't even understand that 2 + 2 = 4.