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Quotes about freedom

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Assassination is the extreme form of censorship; and it seems hard to justify an incitement to it on anti-censorial principles.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet (1909): The Rejected Statement, Pt. I: The Limits to Toleration
Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Pygmalion (1912), Act V, spoken by HigginsIn context
- Friendship
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822Queen Mab (1813), Canto III
- Power
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you⁠—
Ye are many⁠—they are few.
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822The Masque of Anarchy (1819)In context
- Courage
Let us redeem our great words from base uses. Let that no longer call itself Love, which knows that it is not free!
Upton Sinclair1878–1968Love’s Pilgrimage (1911)
- Love
There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.
Upton Sinclair1878–1968The Jungle (1906), Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Money
If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776)In context
- Justice
- Liberty
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
My country, ‘t is of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring.
Samuel Francis Smith1808–1895America (1832)In context
- America
- Patriotism
Privacy is not about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect.
Edward Snowdenborn 1983Why Does Online Privacy Matter? NPR TED Radio Hour March 20, 2020
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)
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
Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by TeiresiasIn context
- Truth & Lies
An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles in order to survive.
George Sorosborn 1930Speech at the National Press Club (2004)
- Democracy
Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930Knowledge and Decisions (1980; 1996), Ch. 5: Political Trade-Offs