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Quotes about freedom

567 quotes from 261 people

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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
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939Letter to Ernest Jones (1933), as quoted in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993) by Robert Andrews, p. 779
- Reading
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams1735–1826Notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)
- Government
- Liberty
Slavery in this Country I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century…
John Adams1735–1826Letter to Thomas Jefferson (3 February 1821), as quoted in Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage (New York: Norton, 1993), p. 138
- Slavery
For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela1918–2013First court statement (1962)
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Nelson Mandela1918–2013Refusing to bargain for freedom after 21 years in prison, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1985)
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.
Milton Friedman1912–2006From Created Equal, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 5 transcript).
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826On slavery, in a letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
- Slavery
The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Private conversation (January 1862)
- Slavery
The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Letter to George Robertson (15 August 1855)
- Slavery
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
John Stuart Mill1806–1873On Liberty (1859), Ch. 1: IntroductoryIn context
- Government
- Liberty
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Aleister Crowley1875–1947The Book of the Law (1904)
- Morality
Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975The Human Condition (1958), part 3, chapter 16
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
William Wordsworth1770–1850It Is Not to Be Thought Of, l. 11 (1807)
- Patriotism