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Quotes about freedom

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In this world, there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Charlie Chaplin1889–1977The Great Dictator (1940), the barber’s closing speech
- Life & Death
There is simply no room left for ‘freedom from the tyranny of government’ since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare.
William S. Burroughs1914–1997Cities of the Red Night (1981)
- Government
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956“What I Believe” in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
- Knowledge
- Truth & Lies
You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn1918–2008The First Circle (1968), Ch. 17, Bobynin
- Power
Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
Edward Snowdenborn 1983Reddit (May 21, 2015)
I love our country. I believe that our Constitution was inspired by Providence. I am convinced that freedom itself is dependent on the strength and vitality of our national character.
Mitt Romneyborn 1947Senate remarks on the Trump impeachment trial (2020)
- Patriotism
The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom.
John Quincy Adams1767–1848Journal of John Quincy Adams (11 December 1838)
- Liberty
- Slavery
He who possesses liberty otherwise than as an aspiration possesses it soulless, dead. One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding.
Henrik Ibsen1828–1906Letter to Georg Brandes (17 February 1871), as translated in Henrik Ibsen: Björnstjerne Björnson. Critical Studies (1899) by Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
- Liberty
Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.
Will Durant1885–1981Declaration of INTERdependence (1945)
- Liberty
A constitutional republic dedicated before everything to the protection of liberty cannot legalize torture and remain a constitutional republic. It imports into itself a tumor of pure tyranny.
Andrew Sullivanborn 1963“Torture, Moral Vanity and Freedom”, The Daily Dish (17 May 2007)
- Government
- Liberty
In a free society, it is hard for “good” people to do “good,” but that is a small price to pay for making it hard for “evil” people to do “evil,” especially since one man’s good is another’s evil.
Milton Friedman1912–2006“The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”, The New York Times Magazine (13 September 1970)
- Good & Evil
I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man: I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could.
William Hazlitt1778–1830Political Essays (1819), Preface
- Politics
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
All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters.
Immanuel Kant1724–1804What is Enlightenment? (1784)
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