Quotes About Freedom

Freedom is not a tea party, India. Freedom is a war.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Such were the factors that detached Ormus Cama from the ordinary ties of family life. The ties that strangle us, which we call love. Because of the loosening of these ties he became, with all the attendant pain of such becoming, free. But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must forever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?

All liberty required was that the space for discourse itself be protected. Liberty lay in the argument itself, not the resolution of that argument, in the ability to quarrel, even with the most cherished beliefs of others; a free society was not placid but turbulent. The bazaar of conflicting was the place where freedom rang.

Roots, I sometimes think, are a conservative myth, designed to keep us in our places.

From birds she learned how to sing; from cats she learned a form of dangerous independence.

I, too, have ropes around my neck. I have them to this day, pulling me this way and that, East and West, the nooses tightening, commanding, choose, choose. I buck, I snort, I whinny, I rear, Ikick. Ropes, I do not choose between you. Lassoes, lariats, I choose neither of you, and both. Doyou hear? I refuse to choose.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country. [ Don't allow religious hooligans to dictate terms ( The Times of India , January 16, 2008)]

A comfortable prison was still a prison.

The enemy for the fanatic is pleasure, which makes it extremely important to continue to indulge in pleasure. Dance madly. That is how you get rid of terrorism.

Many of us persons of the tinted persuasion care about human rights and artistic freedom too.

If you want pay, then just be gay.

We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love.

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now.

In the home of this music, alas, religious fanatics have lately started killing the musicians. They think the music is an insult to god, who gave us voices but does not wish us to sing, who gave us free will, rai, but prefers us not to be free.

But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedom of Speech,' declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, 'if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?

After they stopped torturing him they locked him in the jail cell again and pretended they would forget him... Then, eventually, and unexpectedly, release. Into ignominy, oblivion, married life.

The human race is a life sentence...it's a rough confinement, and sometimes we all need to break out of jail.

What kind of God is it who's upset by a cartoon in Danish? [Interview with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason , June 23, 2006]

In the end, everyone can do without fathers

A question I have often asked is, 'What would an inoffensive political cartoon look like?' What would a respectful cartoon look like? The form requires disrespect and so if we are going to have in the world things like cartoons and satire, we just have to accept it as part of the price of freedom. (Interview, The Hindu , 2012)

Non mi piacciono i matrimoni combinati. Ci sono sbagli dei quali non bisognerebbe mai poter incolpare i propri poveri genitori.

All these young women these days who describe the veil as a signifier of their identity. I tell them they are suffering what the presently unfashionable philosopher Karl Marx would have called false consciousness. In most of the world the veil is not a free choice. Women are forced into invisibility by men. These girls in the West making their quote-unquote free choices are legitimizing the oppression of their sisters in the parts of the world where the choice is not free.

Después de exigir mi marcha, ya no posees jurisdicción en lo concerniente a mi salud.