Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about freedom

567 quotes from 261 people

Most readBy personPage 12 of 38

To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.
André Gide1869–1951The Immoralist, Chapter 1 (1902)
I believe the slave trade to be by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech in the House of Commons (19 March 1850)
- Slavery
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Elective Affinities (1809), Bk. II, Ch. 5
The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Living My Life (1931)
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), “Minorities Versus Majorities”
- Thinking
Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
Emma Goldman1869–1940Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), “Marriage and Love”
- Love
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Barry Goldwater1909–1998Acceptance Speech as the 1964 Republican Presidential candidate
- Liberty
And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
Barry Goldwater1909–1998The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), p. 15
- Liberty
- Politics
In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of “openness” and freedom.
Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022“Nature Is My God”—interview with Fred Matser in Resurgence No. 184 (September-October 1997)
- Politics
Direct action is the insistence, when faced with structures of unjust authority, on acting as if one is already free.
David Graeber1961–2020Direct Action: An Ethnography (Oakland: AK Press: 2009), p. 203
- Power
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Conclusion
- Slavery
- War & Peace
The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Second Inaugural Address (1873)
- Race
- Slavery
We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Conversation with Otto von Bismarck, Berlin (June 1878), as recorded in John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (1879), vol. 1, p. 416
- Slavery
Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
Graham Greene1904–1991“Freedom of Thought,” speech accepting the Jerusalem Prize (6 April 1981)
- Thinking
The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening.
Germaine Greerborn 1939The Female Eunuch (1970), Introduction
- Fear