c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop.She's realized the real problem with stories - if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.
— Neil Gaiman, Preludes & Nocturnes
Dreams are another slice of reality, not different from where we are now—they just tell about it in a different way. They also can open up your reality. They don’t have the constraints of conscious logic.
— Natalie Goldberg
Every tomorrow is an outcome of what I do today, and the beauty of it all is that today is happening all the time.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Autumn's Journey: Deep Growth in the Grief and Loss of Life's Seasons
Bright New Year for a blessed beginning.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
I wish you a great grace to fulfill your dreams in the New Year.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
May you find a new strength to reach out for dreams.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
The star rises from the east. Watch out! Your star will guide you.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
I can be absolutely assured that any endeavor of which God is not a part is most certainly a step backward. And any step backward is at least two steps behind where I’d be if I’d have gone forward in the first place.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
The greatest energy must be use for work.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
I wish you great fun with your sacred adventure.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Nobody seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize.
— Ellen Hopkins, Perfect
Dreams go by opposites I was once told.
— Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
A New Year brings new grace for new accomplishments.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Believe in yourself and the beauty of your dreams.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Every new day gives me ceaseless hope to reach out for my dreams
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Resolutions: So many will fail; NOT because they didn't set goals, but because they didn't set behaviors.
— Steve Maraboli
Abiding in the vine leads to fruit bearing.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
The true cost of following your dreams isn't what you sacrifice when you chase them, it's what you lose when you don't
— Simon S. Tam
The glorious riches of God are inexhaustible.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Nothing great could ever be achieved, without personal force, determined spirit and self-confidence.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
I am no bird
—  and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
— Coco Chanel
Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
— Mahatma Gandhi
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
— Nelson Mandela
When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
— Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
— Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
— Søren Kierkegaard
Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
— Anaïs Nin, Incest: From a Journal of Love
I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
— Toni Morrison, Beloved
I'm single because I was born that way.
— Mae West
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves
— Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works - Volume XII
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
— Robert A. Heinlein
We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
— William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
— Thomas Jefferson
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
— Noam Chomsky
I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
— Kahlil Gibran, The Madman
True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
— Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
You see, freedom has a way of destroying things.
— Scott Westerfeld, Extras
Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
— Mae West, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms
We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.We lived in the gaps between the stories.
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
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 Mandela
If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system.That's much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.
— Marie Lu, Legend
I do not wish them [women] to have power over men
—  but over themselves.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
— Henry David Thoreau
Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin
The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
— James Bovard, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty
There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.
— Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
— George Washington
We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.
— Malcolm X
And the turtles, of course...all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
— Dr. Seuss, Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
— Rosa Luxemburg
Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.
— Jim Morrison
My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.
— Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
— Audre Lorde
I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.
— Ansel Adams
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.
— Toni Morrison
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression
—  in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.
— Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
— John F. Kennedy
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
— Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
— Napoléon Bonaparte
I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.
— Noam Chomsky
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
— Thomas Paine
To die hating them, that was freedom.
— George Orwell, 1984
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
— Patrick Henry
She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.
— Janet Fitch, White Oleander
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be
— James     Baldwin
Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
— Thomas Jefferson
It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
— Bertrand Russell
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards fre
— Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else's mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one's own place and economy.In such a society, also, our private economies will depend less and less upon the private ownership of real, usable property, and more and more upon property that is institutional and abstract, beyond individual control, such as money, insurance policies, certificates of deposit, stocks, and shares. And as our private economies become more abstract, the mutual, free helps and pleasures of family and community life will be supplanted by a kind of displaced or placeless citizenship and by commerce with impersonal and self-interested suppliers...Thus, although we are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make. What would be the point, for example, if a majority of our people decided to be self-employed?The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth - that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community - and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.
— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
To belong nowhere is a blessing and a curse, like any kind of freedom.
— Leah Stewart, The Myth of You and Me
The country was in peril
—  he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.
— Daniel Patrick Moynihan
[F]reedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.
— Bill Maher, When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism
She closed her eyes and jumped. For a moment she felt herself hang suspended, free of everything. Then gravity took over, and she plunged toward the floor. Instinctively she pulled her arms and legs in, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. The cord pulled taut and she rebounded, flying back up before falling again. As her velocity slowed, she opened her eyes and found herself dangling at the end of the cord, about five feet above Jace. He was grinning.'Nice', he said. 'As graceful as a falling snowflake.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions
We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.
— Slavoj Žižek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates
He who is brave is free
— Seneca
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
— Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
— Kahlil Gibran
There is more than one kind of freedom," said Aunt Lydia. "Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.
— Albert Einstein
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...
— Malcolm X
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
— John Philpot Curran
Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself. 
— Brennan Manning, The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
— John Milton, Areopagitica
Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.
— Salman Rushdie
The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: Are my trousers long enough?Is my veil in place?Can my make-up be seen?Are they going to whip me?No longer asks herself: Where is my freedom of thought?Where is my freedom of speech?My life, is it liveable?What's going on in the political prisons?
— Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis
You can't take the sky from me.
— Joss Whedon
Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.
— John Milton, Comus
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom. 
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?
— Mary Astell
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are
— John F. Kennedy
Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.
— Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.
— Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.
— Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
— Muhammad Ali
Secrecy begets tyranny.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
— John  Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife
Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.
— Noam Chomsky
A man’s spirit is free, but his pride binds him with chains of suffocation in a prison of his own insecurities
— Jeremy Aldana
Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.
— Ron Paul
Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose".
— Kris Kristofferson
There are only two things to worry about in life: either you’re free or you’re not. If you’re free, there’s nothing to worry about. If you’re not, you kick the shit out of everything around you until you are.
— Karen Marie Moning, Iced
Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.
— Vladimir Lenin
What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.
— Madeleine K. Albright
The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You'reborn with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something youassume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree towhich you resist is the degree to which you are free...
— Utah Phillips
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
— Kahlil Gibran, The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul
This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.
— Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.
— George Washington
The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.
— Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
— Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.
— Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
— Søren Kierkegaard
Democracy is in the blood of the Muslims, who look upon complete equality of mankind, and believe in fraternity, equality, and liberty.
— Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Of course. That's what people do in a disordered world, a world of freedom and choice: they leave when they want. They disappear, they come back, they leave again. And you are left to pick up the pieces on your own.
— Lauren Oliver, Requiem
I need this wild life, this freedom.
— Zane Grey
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
— Marvin Simkin
Liberties aren't given, they are taken.
— Aldous Huxley
She decided to free herself, dance into the wind, create a new language. And birds fluttered around her, writing “yes” in the sky.
— Monique Duval
We love our lovin'....but not like we love our freedom.
— Joni Mitchell
You can do anything you want. You don't believe me. You think, she's out of her head. Yeah, I'm out of my head- on being me. What are you on? On being them. You don't even know. I bet you were never given a chance to know. ....Listen. You can be anything you want to be. Be careful. It's a spell. It's magic. Listen to the words.... You are anything...everyone, anyone. ...You listen to them, teachers, parents, politicians. They're always saying, if you steal you're a thief, if you sleep aroung you're a slut, if you take drugs you're a junkie. They want to get inside your head and control you with their fear. ...Don't play their game. Nothing can touch you; you stay beautiful.
— Melvin Burgess, Smack
There’s glory and honour in being chosen. But not much room for free will
— Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity
You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.
— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.— from Bhagat Singh's prison diary, p. 124
— Bhagat Singh, The Jail Notebook And Other Writings
The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves...
— Paulo Freire
I declare that The Beatles are mutants. Prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen.
— Timothy Leary
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
— Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
Life calls the tune, we dance.
— John Galsworthy
Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control... to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare.
— Lance Morrow, The Chief: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons
The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims.United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list -- yes, even the short skirts and the dancing -- are worth dying for?The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them.How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.
— Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002
Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.
— Herbert Marcuse
If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.
— Elizabeth I, Collected Works
Chains of gold are still chains.
— Robert Thier, Storm and Silence
Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace
— Dean Koontz, The Good Guy
All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.
— Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
— Ayn Rand, Anthem
You can't cage an eagle for long without destroying it.
— Patricia Briggs, Dragon Blood
Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules
—  it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.
The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.
— Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of the Solitary Walker
Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.
— Mark Twain
I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.
— Daniel Webster
America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.
— Thomas L. Friedman
The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.
— Yevgeny Zamyatin, We
Pain will leave you, when you let go
— Jeremy Aldana
There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.
— Greta Garbo, Greta and Cecil
In riding a horse, we borrow freedom
— Helen Thompson
I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of all things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a sacrifice on their alters.
— Ayn Rand, Anthem
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.
— Bob Dylan
Don't let the man bring you down.
— Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman
Even a second of freedom is worth more than a lifetime of bondage.
— James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
Every election is determined by the people who show up.
— Larry J. Sabato, Pendulum Swing
I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.
— Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
— Ronald Reagan
Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire.
— Abbie Hoffman
Until we are all free, we are none of us free. 
— Emma Lazarus
Do not make the mistake of thinking that you have to agree with people and their beliefs to defend them from injustice.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Death isn't empty like you say it is. Emptiness is life without freedom, Darrow. Emptiness is living chained by fear, fear of loss, of death. I say we break those chains. Break the chains of fear and you break the chains that bind us to the Golds, to the Society. Could you imagine it? Mars could be ours. It could belong to the colonists who slaved here, died here." Her face is easier to see as the night fades through the clear roof. It is alive, on fire. "If you led the others to freedom. The things you could do, Darrow. The things you could make happen." She pauses and I see her eyes are glistening. "It chills me. You have been given so, so much, but you set your sights so low.""You repeat the same damn points," I say bitterly. "You think a dream is worth dying for. I say it isn't. You say it's better to die on your feet. I say it's better to live on our knees.""You're not even listening!" she snaps. "We are machine men with machine minds, machine lives …" "And machine hearts?" I ask. "That's what I am?""Darrow …" "What do you live for?" I ask her suddenly. "Is it for me? Is it for family and love? Or is it just for some d
— Pierce Brown, Red Rising
The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realize through that sin his true perfection.
— Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
To be given dominion over another is a hard thing
—  to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing
Freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man. One whose mind is not free, though he may not be in prison, is a prisoner and not a free man. One whose mind is not free though alive, is no better than dead. Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence.
— B.R. Ambedkar, Writings And Speeches: A Ready Reference Manual
Most gun control arguments miss the point. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? How can a truly “free” state exist if the individual citizen is enslaved to the forceful will of individual or organized aggressors? It cannot.
— Tiffany Madison
Those who choose to be servants know the most about being free. 
— Janette Oke
Freedom's just a word todayFreedom's just a wordWhen someone takes your word awayIt's seldom ever heardSo take a sentence full of things you're not supposed to sayCarry on, but don't write them down or you'll be gone
— Stone Sour
To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize﻿ and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression
— Rowan Atkinson
Good. Because I don't need protecting.""I knew you'd say that.But the thing is, sometimes you do. And sometimes I do. We're meant to protect each other, but not from everything. Not from the truth. That's what it means to love someone but let them be themselves.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls
Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
— Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, and Early Writings
What we think about when we are free to think about what we will – that is what we are or will soon become.
— A.W. Tozer
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
— John Paul II
In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred,It is a paryer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present.
— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, The Shapeshifters: The Kiesha'ra of the Den of Shadows
What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
I want him to live if HE wants to live. If he doesn't, then by forcing him to carry on, you, me..... we become just another shitty bunch of people taking away his choices.
— Jojo Moyes, Me Before You
You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.
— Sam Harris, Free Will
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
— Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
— Frédéric Bastiat
It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! and chose the subhuman. You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' mother, who bore her child for love and love alone. You had your choice between Marx's insight into the productivity of your living labor power, which alone creates the value of commodities and the idea of the state. You forgot the living energy of your labor and chose the idea of the state. In the French Revolution, you had your choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and goodness to the guillotine. In Germany you had your choice between Goring and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau, and Muhsam on the other. You made Himmler your police chief and murdered your great friends. You had your choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau. You had your choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson. You had your choice between the cruel Inquisition and Galileo's truth. You tortured and humiliated the great Galileo, from whose inventions you are still benefiting, and now, in the twentieth century, you have brought the methods of the Inquisition to a new flowering. … Every one of your acts of smallness and meanness throws light on the boundless wretchedness of the human animal. 'Why so tragic?' you ask. 'Do you feel responsible for all evil?' With remarks like that you condemn yourself. If, little man among millions, you were to shoulder the barest fraction of your responsibility, the world would be a very different place. Your great friends wouldn't perish, struck down by your smallness.
— Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man!
...new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, 'Do not argue!' The Officer says: 'Do not argue but drill!' The tax collector: 'Do not argue but pay!' The cleric: 'Do not argue but believe!' Only one prince in the world says, 'Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!' Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.
— Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Don't I deserve to finally be free of you?
— Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight
We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.
— Stephen Jay Gould
Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it's time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.
— Bill Moyers
My life is an adventure." she said, growing confident as she opened her eyes again. "I will not be shackled to this satellite anymore.
— Marissa Meyer, Cress
A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
— Milton Friedman
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.
— Muhammad Ali Jinnah
When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.
— Jack Kerouac, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.
— Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
Hatred. Something almost as physical as walls, pianos, or nurses. She could almost touch the destructive energy leaking out of her body. She allowed the feeling to emerge, regardless of whether it was good or bad; she was sick of self-control, of masks, of appropriate behavior. Veronika wanted to spend her remaining two or three days of life behaving as inappropriately as she could.
— Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.
— Abraham Lincoln
You ought to live your life with such freedom and joy that uptight Christians will doubt your salvation.
— Steve   Brown, A Scandalous Freedom