FREEDOM QUOTES

quotations about freedom

Freedom quote

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

Human Nature and the Social Order


The truth shall make you free.

JESUS

John 8:31


The more fully the individual is developed, the greater his freedom.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

attributed, The Philosophy of Bakunin


Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to H.L. Pierce, Apr. 6, 1859


Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

RONALD REAGAN

First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981


I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!

CHARLES DICKENS

Bleak House


Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Camino Real


Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

GEORGE WASHINGTON


Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.

GAO XINGJIAN

Nocturnal Wanderer


Come on dance on the freedom train

LENNY KRAVITZ

"Freedom Train", Let Love Rule


Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.

WILLIAM COWPER

Table Talk


Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.

RONALD REAGAN

speech at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988


Freedom is just chaos, with better lighting.

ALAN DEAN FOSTER

To the Vanishing Point


Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you
Lay your body down.

STEPHEN STILLS

"Find the Cost of Freedom"


People never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

EDMUND BURKE

speech at County Meeting of Bucks, 1784


This freedom of which men speak, for which they fight, seems to some people a perilous thing. It has to be earned at a bitter cost and then -- it has to be lived with. For freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

You Learn by Living


Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

SIGMUND FREUD

Civilization and Its Discontents


There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere... Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

TONY BLAIR

speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003


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 MANDELA

Long Walk to Freedom


The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.

TONY BLAIR

speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003