FREEDOM QUOTES III
quotations about freedom
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I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
JAMES MADISON
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speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, Jun. 6, 1788
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The more freedom you give people to do good, the more freedom they have to do bad as well.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
I've read and heard a lot of unbelievable stuff about those times when people lived in freedom -- that is, in disorganized wildness.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Freedom, we're gonna ring the bell
Freedom to rock, freedom to talk
Freedom, raise your fist and yell
ALICE COOPER
"Freedom"
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1953
Modern European and American history is centered around the effort to gain freedom from the political, economic, and spiritual shackles that have bound men. The battles for freedom where fought by the oppressed, those who wanted new liberties, against those who had privileges to defend. While a class was fighting for its own liberation from domination, it believed itself to be fighting for human freedom as such and thus was able to appeal to an ideal, to the longing for freedom rooted in all who are oppressed. In the long and virtually continuous battle for freedom, however, classes that were fighting against oppression at one stage sided with the enemies of freedom when victory was won and new privileges were to be defended.
ERICH FROMM
Escape from Freedom
We ... would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
speech, June 1941
Freedom is sometimes defined as a lack of resistance or restraint. A wheel turns freely if there is very little friction in the bearing, a horse breaks free from the post to which it has been tethered, a man frees himself from the branch on which he has been caught while climbing a tree. Physical restraint is an obvious condition, which seems particularly useful in defining freedom, but with respect to important issues, it is a metaphor and not a very good one. People are indeed controlled by fetters, handcuffs, strait jackets, and the walls of jails and concentration camps, but what may be called behavioral control--the restraint imposed by contingencies of reinforcement--is a very different thing.
BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER
Beyond Freedom & Dignity
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The Social Contract
Once a man has tasted freedom, he will never be content to be a slave.
WALT DISNEY
radio address, Mar. 1, 1941
Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.
EMIL CIORAN
History & Utopia
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Out of My Later Years
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
JOHN DALBERG-ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
It is the mind of man alone that is the cause of his bondage or freedom.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly--until at last the darkness is no more.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
attributed, The Rebirth of a Nation
Love of country follows from the exercise of its freedoms, not from pride in its fleets or its armies.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Them", Lapham's Quarterly: Foreigners, winter 2014
I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
farewell address, Sep. 17, 1796
Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
Law
To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
ANDRE GIDE
Autumn Leaves