Quotes About Freedom

Drop dead-but first get permit

I see the beauty of Mike's attempt to devise an ideal ethic and applaud his recognition that such must start by junking the present sexual code and starting fresh. Most philosophers haven't the courage for this; they swallow the basics of the present code--monogamy, family pattern, continence, body taboos, conventional restrictions on intercourse, and so forth--then fiddle with details...even such piffle as discussing whether the female breast is an obscene sight! (p.365)

The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

My vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free.

That we were slaves I had known all my life--and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold--but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves.

Women and cats do as they damned well please, and men and dogs had best learn to live with it.

Cats, like butterflies, need no excuse.

Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.

No one ever does anything but what he wants to do—'enjoys'—within the possibilities open to him. If I change a tire, it's because I enjoy it more than being stranded.

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.

But, whatever you do, do not let the past be a straitjacket!

You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Comrades, I beg you – do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

You can die anyplace. They've never managed to regulate that.

I never do anything I don't want to. Nor does anyone, but in my case I know it.

you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible—because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.

How many people have died because they would not abandon their baggage?

There is an old song which asserts that 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.

Jubal longed for the days when a lawyer could cite the Bill of Rights and not have some over-riding Federation trickery defeat him.

Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.

He had more than his share of that streak of anarchy which was the birthright of every American;

Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person.