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Quotes about freedom

567 quotes from 261 people

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Men fight for liberty, and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
D. H. Lawrence1885–1930“Liberty’s Old Old Story”, Pansies (1929)
- Liberty
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
Emma Lazarus1849–1887The New Colossus (1883)In context
- America
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus1849–1887The New Colossus (1883)In context
- America
While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
Vladimir Lenin1870–1924The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5
- Government
Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners.
Vladimir Lenin1870–1924The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5.
All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.
Vladimir Lenin1870–1924Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 504–9.
- Journalism
One cannot live in society and be free from society.
Vladimir Lenin1870–1924Party Organization and Party Literature (1905), Lenin Anthology, 151
In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph.
Primo Levi1919–1987The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
- Debate
- Liberty
The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963Christian Reflections
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
ALA. J. Liebling1904–1963Often credited to H. L. Mencken
- Journalism
I think it’s insulting to people who have a heritage of slavery to compare the homosexual experience in America to that. It’s an unfortunate, cheap attempt to piggyback on something and to co-opt life experiences of others, claim that you’ve experienced them yourselves so that you can advance a cause.
Rush Limbaugh1951–2021
- Race
- Slavery
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865A House Divided (1858)
- America
- Slavery
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Definition of Democracy; see Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 532
- Democracy
- Slavery
The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Private conversation (January 1862)
- Slavery