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Quotes about freedom

567 quotes from 261 people

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I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s;
I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.
William Blake1757–1827Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 1, plate 10, lines 20-21 The Words of Los
- Art
We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people have become less vigilant of our liberties.
Ron Paulborn 1935Speech in the House of Representatives, September 17, 1997
- Government
- Liberty
Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils.
Jeremy Bentham1748–1832Principles of Legislation (1830), Ch. X: Analysis of Political Good and Evil; How they are spread in society
God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he’d rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven.
Desmond Tutu1931–2021Beyers Naudé memorial lecture (15 August 2003)
- God
Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country… They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.
Boris Yeltsin1931–2007Appeal to citizens of Russia to oppose the 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. (19 August 1991)
Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.
Thích Nhất Hạnh1926–2022“Returning Home”, Shambhala Sun (March 2006)
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it⁠—basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.
Charles Bukowski1920–1994Tales of ordinary madness (1967-83)
The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world — all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them.
Muhammad Yunusborn 1940“Eliminating Poverty Through Market-Based Social Entrepreneurship” in Global Urban Development Magazine (May 2005)
- Economics
Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn’t give you the key, they’re not doing it for your benefit.
Cory Doctorowborn 1971“Digital Distribution and the Whip Hand: Don’t Get iTunesed with your eBooks”, O’Reilly (11 February 2009)
- Technology
I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.
Giacomo Casanova1725–1798Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
Desmond Tutu1931–2021Today, NBC TV (9 January 1985)
- Justice
A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that, I am sure, is why he does it.
Roald Dahl1916–1990“Goodbye school” in Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
- Writing
The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as “Communists” or “Fascists” by their opponents.
Margaret Chase Smith1897–1995Declaration of Conscience (1950)
- 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
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