Quotes About Freedom

think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. —Words popularly attributed to SOJOURNER TRUTH, the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, 1851

Writing in 1783, George Washington had articulated what we like to think of as the American way on such things: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.

in which we can live, live freely, and pursue happiness to the best of our abilities. We cannot guarantee equal outcomes, but we must do all we can to ensure equal opportunity.

William L. Shirer, who had covered Nazi Germany, wrote on returning home. "I had seen these poisons grow into ugly witch hunting and worse in the totalitarian lands abroad, but I was not prepared to find them taking root in our own splendid democracy.

everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will," Jefferson said.72 "This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because it is necessary for his own sustenance.

while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.…1 Nothing is required for this enlightenment Ã¢â'¬Â¦ except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters. —IMMANUEL KANT, "What Is Enlightenment?" The

the ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, that we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time, and eternally press forward for what is yet to get.

the American physician Samuel Cartwright identifying in 1851 a mental disorder, drapetomania, evident only in slaves. The sole symptom was "the desire to run away from slavery" and the cure was to "whip the devil out of them

Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least to a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.

If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

We're not going to get the jack-booted thugs stomping on a human face that you get in '1984' but we might get the 'Brave New World' where the biggest problem there is how to deal with the fact that everyone is so happy...[W]hat we're going to get is a nanny-type of fascism, if we get one at all...[S]imply because the nanny-state wants to hug you doesn't mean it's not tyrannical if you don't want to be hugged.

My Caprice was a spacious cruiser, well insulated from the world—one motored along the highways as if sitting in a middle-class living room equipped with an engine and tires.

Don't ever try to be normal because it's the first symptom of a terminal disease. As soon as you feel the need to be normal coming on, get the antidote. ... Just make sure you're living your life; don't let normal pretend to be you.

The phallic symbolism of his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, is obvious. Lindbergh, in effect, is trapped inside an enormous penis which carries him onwards to an inevitable destination which cannot be changed. Is this how you feel as a director, trapped inside your own masculinity?

Interesting little phrase though, isn't it though open marriage? Makes it sound like a drain, or a sewer.

Use well thy freedom.

Remind me again what's wrong with Dave Matthews? Basically everything, except technical proficiency, Walter said. Right. But maybe especially the banality of the lyrics. 'Gotta be free, so free, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't live without my freedom, yeah yeah.' That's pretty much every song.

What made drugs perpetually so sexy was the opportunity to be other. Years after he'd figured out that pot only made him paranoid and sleepless, he still got hard-ons at the thought of smoking it. Still lusted for that jailbreak.

She had all day every day to figure out some decent and satisfying way to live, and yet all she ever seemed to get for all her choices and all her freedom was more miserable. The autobiographer is almost forced to the conclusion that she pitied herself for being so free.

He felt like a helium balloon straining skyward on a slender string.

He watched a catbird hopping around in an azalea that was readying itself to bloom; he envied the bird for knowing nothing of what he knew; he would have swapped souls with it in a heartbeat. And then to take wing, to know the air's buoyancy even for an hour: the trad was a no-brainer, and the catbird, with its lively indifference to him, its sureness of physical selfhood, seemed well aware of how preferable it was to be the bird.

People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don't have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can't afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.