c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
The paralysis of potential is essential to the manufacturing of victims.
— Stefan Molyneux
Do you have a pet bird?' I asked, looking around the room.'Oh, heavens, no. I'd never cage a bird. I can't imagine a worse fate, can you? I bought this cage at a market in Peru several years ago. I hung it here and wired the door open to remind myself how delicious freedom is -- financial and otherwise.
— Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
Perfect Liberty follows no rules, law, or any virtue for that matter. It disregards respect, courteousness, and love.
— Veronica Mist, The Seven - The Key of Credence
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
— James Madison, The Constitution of the United States of America
Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.
— Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor
—  it must be demanded by the oppressed.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
— Abraham Lincoln
We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.
— Charles E. Schaefer
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
— Eugene V. Debs, Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches
This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.
— Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd.
— Marty Rubin
As I went walking I saw a sign thereAnd on the sign it said "No Trespassing."But on the other side it didn't say nothing,That side was made for you and me.This land is your land, this land is my landFrom California to the New York islandFrom the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream watersThis land was made for you and me.
— Woody Guthrie
liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.
— Cornel West
But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi--like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that ever was on earth--do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them. "Be not anxious for the morrow," and "which of you being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?"So they dare to be idle, i.e. not to be pressed and duty-driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good. 
— Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
But we do not merely protest
—  we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears
An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle; while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even whip and spur: so savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke to which civilised man submits without a murmur, but prefers the most turbulent state of liberty to the most peaceful slavery. We cannot therefore, from the servility of nations already enslaved, judge of the natural disposition of mankind for or against slavery; we should go by the prodigious efforts of every free people to save itself from oppression. I know that the former are for ever holding forth in praise of the tranquillity they enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched servitude a state of peace: miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant. But when I observe the latter sacrificing pleasure, peace, wealth, power and life itself to the preservation of that one treasure, which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see free-born animals dash their brains out against the bars of their cage, from an innate impatience of captivity; when I behold numbers of naked savages, that despise European pleasures, braving hunger, fire, the sword and death, to preserve nothing but their independence, I feel that it is not for slaves to argue about liberty.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The secret of happiness is freedom but to be totally free you need to earn: courage, persistence and boldness.
— Santosh Kalwar
When poverty declines, the need for government declines, which is why expecting government to solve poverty is like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign.
— Stefan Molyneux
- Government -Free Shit for Idiots
— Stefan Molyneux
To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.
— Aung San Suu Kyi, Letters from Burma
This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defea
— William O. Douglas
I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.
— Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.
— Douglas Pagels, These Are the Gifts I'd Like to Give to You: A Sourcebook of Joy and Encouragement
Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise. Clare has turned the second bedroom into a wonder cabinet, full of small sculptures and drawings pinned up on every inch of wall space. There are coils of wire and rolls of paper tucked into shelves and drawers. The sculptures remind me of kites, or model airplanes. I say this to Clare one evening, standing in the doorway of her studio in my suit and tie, home from work, about to begin making dinner, and she throws one at me; it flies surprisingly well, and soon we are standing at opposite ends of the hall, tossing tiny sculptures at each other, testing their aerodynamics. The next day I come home to find that Clare has created a flock of paper and wire birds, which are hanging from the ceiling in the living room. A week later our bedroom windows are full of abstract blue translucent shapes that the sun throws across the room onto the walls, making a sky for the bird shapes Clare has painted there. It's beautiful. The next evening I'm standing in the doorway of Clare's studio, watching her finish drawing a thicket of black lines around a little red bird. Suddenly I see Clare, in her small room, closed in by all her stuff, and I realize that she's trying to say something, and I know what I have to do.
— Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
If every time we choose a turd, society, at a great expense, simply allows us to redeem it for a pepperoni, then not only will we never learn to make smart choices, we will also surrender the freedom to choose, because a choice without consequences is no choice at all.
— Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet's censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything---you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
— Robert A. Heinlein
What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.
— Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness
Here beyond men's judgments all covenants were brittle.
— Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Suicide seemed to me the greatest kind of freedom, a release from everything, from a life that had been ruined a long time ago.
— Natascha Kampusch, 3,096 Days
You do not win by struggling to the top of a caste system, you win by refusing to be trapped within one at all.
— Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Four Ways to Forgiveness
With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.
— Doris Lessing
A human being who wakened in the morning with a queesy stomach, with fifteen hours to kill before next bedtime, had not much use for freedom.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
It was tragic how life had sucked her down to the bones, all her spontaneity her laughter and freedom had vanished. I knew then that I didn't ever want to be like that. Whatever happened, life was something too precious to give up on so easily.
— Belinda Jeffrey, One Long Thread
A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the canidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy--to be followed by a dictatorship.
— Alexander Fraser Tytler
Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the eternal tandem.
— Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Lights," I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.
— Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
…there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.
— Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
This is just the way life is – sometimes cruel, sometimes beautiful, all the time confusing and frightening and exhilarating – and we just have to deal with it. That’swhat freedom is.
— Chloe Rattray, Sacré Noir
I hold life sacred, even more since I’ve tasted freedom,... But I've lost my fear of death... But if you join me, I will gladly give my life for you. Because this land and its people have lost too much.
— Lily Blake, Snow White & the Huntsman
With all these occurrences of death facing me, I thought about issues of freedom. If government projects the idea that we, as people inhabiting this particular land mass, have freedom, then for the rest of our lives we will go out and find what appear to be the boundaries and smack against them like a heart against the rib cage. If we reveal boundaries in the course of our movements, then we will expose the inherent lie in the use of the word freedom. I want to keep breathing and moving until I arrive at a place where motion and strength and relief intersect. I don't know what's ahead of me in the course of my life and this civilization. I just don't feel I have reached the necessary things inside my history that would ease the pressure in my skull and in my future and in my present. It is exhausting, living in a population where people don't speak up if what they witness doesn't directly threaten them.
— David Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through ‘a democratic process’ he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have nots.’ Both have lost their freedom. Those who ‘have,’ lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who ‘have not,’ lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got ‘something for nothing,’ and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.
— Howard W. Hunter, The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, Fourteenth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.
— Archibald MacLeish
The wild ivy grows wherever it pleases.
— Marty Rubin
When enough people understand reality, tyrants can literally be ignored out of existence. They can't ever be voted out of existence.
— Larken Rose
Als it is hard for America to fight wars in the name of freedom, if those people themselves choose for nonfreedom. Can America and England save India from communism, if they vote communist themselves.
— Oswald Mosley, Ich glaube an Europa: Ein Weg aus der Krise, eine Einführung in das europäische Denken
Freedom is not from the outside. It's of the inside.
— John Kremer
But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete." (John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963, American University speech)
— John F. Kennedy
The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response. To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.
— Larken Rose
Contrary to your beliefs, I am stronger then what you give me credit for, but the real lesson here is the knowledge to know I don't owe you an explanation to anything.
— Nikki Rowe
There are people who are willing to protect freedom until there is nothing left of it.
— Heinar Kipphardt, In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer
Art is a space in which freedom tests its wings.
— Marty Rubin
The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
— Jeff Cooper, Art of the Rifle
Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.
— Émile Durkheim, On Suicide: A Study in Sociology
A city which belongs to just one man is no true city
— Sophocles, Antigone
And yet even among the friends of liberty, many people are deceived into believing that government can make them safe from all harm, provide fairly distributed economic security, and improve individual moral behavior. If the government is granted a monopoly on the use of force to achieve these goals, history shows that power is always abused. Every single time.
— Ron Paul, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
— Thomas Jefferson
It must be something voluntary, something self induced - like getting drunk, or talking yourself into believing some piece of foolishness because it happens to be in the Scriptures. And then look at their idea of what's normal. Believe it or not, a normal human being is one who can have an orgasm and is adjusted to society. It's unimaginable! No question about what you do with your orgasms. No question about the quality of your feelings and thoughts and perceptions. And then what about the society you're supposed to be adjusted to? Is it a mad society or a sane one? And even if it's pretty sane, is it right that anybody should be completely adjusted to it?
— Aldous Huxley, Island
Skepticism, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. Skepticism is the father of freedom. It is like the pry that holds open the door for truth to slip in.
— Gerry Spence, Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life
The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Ghandi, quoted in Merton, p. 68
— Thomas Merton, Gandhi On Non-Violence
There is freedom in stepping out and taking risks when you know at any given moment, you can always begin again.
— Eva Gregory
You're still in prison if you do nothing better in freedom.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
He wants to enslave you.''I shudder at the thought of being free.
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.
— Ronald Reagan, The Quest for Peace, the Cause of Freedom
Life is a tragedy of nutrition
— Arnold Ehret, The Definite Cure of Chronic Constipation: Also: Overcoming Constipation Naturally
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved home and the war's desolation!Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
— Francis Scott Key
Most people would look at an animal in a cage and instinctively feel that it should be set free. . . . It's a dangerous world out there, filled with predators. . . . What would you prefer? A comfortable, safe, warm, cosy life in a cage, or an uncertain life of freedom.
— Scarlett Thomas, Going Out
You can love her with everything you have and she still wont belong to you. She will run wild with you, beside you with everystep but let me tell you something about women who run with wolves, their fierce hearts dont settle between walls and their instinct is stronger than upbringing. Love her wild or leave her there.
— Nikki Rowe
Rena noticed me watching it pass. 'You think they don't got problem?' Rena said. 'Everybody got problem. You got me, they got insurance, house payment, Preparation H.' She smiled, baring the part between her two upper teeth. 'We are the free birds. They want to be us.
— Janet Fitch, White Oleander
Dear Anarcho-Communist,If you and I ever find ourselves in a stateless society, have no fear. Just mention that you are a communist, and I promise I will never try to "oppress" and "exploit" you by offering to trade with you, or by offering to pay you to do work.Sincerely,Larken Rose
— Larken Rose
Property taxes' rank right up there with 'income taxes' in terms of immorality and destructiveness. Where 'income taxes' are simply slavery using different words, 'property taxes' are just a Mafia turf racket using different words. For the former, if you earn a living on the gang's turf, they extort you. For the latter, if you own property in their territory, they extort you. The fact that most people still imagine both to be legitimate and acceptable shows just how powerful authoritarian indoctrination is. Meanwhile, even a brief objective examination of the concepts should make anyone see the lunacy of it. 'Wait, so every time I produce anything or trade with anyone, I have to give a cut to the local crime lord??' 'Wait, so I have to keep paying every year, for the privilege of keeping the property I already finished paying for??' And not only do most people not make such obvious observations, but if they hear someone else pointing out such things, the well-trained Stockholm Syndrome slaves usually make arguments condoning their own victimization. Thus is the power of the mind control that comes from repeated exposure to BS political mythology and propaganda.
— Larken Rose
Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.
— Margaret Thatcher
But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.''What sort of tools?''More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.
— Robert Anton Wilson, The Eye in the Pyramid
She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what's beyond ahead.
— Núria Añó
No settlement with the majority is possible as no Hindu leader speaking with any authority shows any concern or genuine desire for it.
— Muhammad Ali Jinnah
But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.
— Ron Paul
There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an artificial, arbitrary, gray uniformity--those who wanted to transcend through their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were willing to pay the ultimate price.
— Terry Goodkind, Faith of the Fallen
Only a sense of lightness, giddy and dizzying, like flight—of a burden that didn't belong to me being lifted.Suddenly I knew the truth and the lights surrounding me exp
— Andrea Cremer, Bloodrose
Drink freely the wine life offers you and don't worry how much you spill.
— Marty Rubin
I used to think freedom was freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience. But freedom is the whole life of everyone. Here is what it amounts to: you have to have the right to sow what you wish to, to make shoes or coats, to bake into bread the flour ground from the grain you have sown, and to sell it or not sell it as you wish; for the lathe operator, the steelworker, and the artist it’s a matter of being able to live as you wish and work as you wish and not as they order you to. And in our country there is no freedom – not for those who write books nor for those who sow grain nor for those who make shoes.” (Grossman, p. 99) He noted that “In people’s day-to-day struggle to live, in the extreme efforts workers put forth to earn an extra ruble through moonlighting, in the collective farmers’ battle for bread and potatoes as the one and only fruit of their labor, he [Ivan Grigoryevich] could sense more than the desire to live better, to fill one’s children’s stomachs and to clothe them. In the battle for the right to make shoes, to knit sweaters, in the struggle to plant what one wished, was manifested the natural, indestructible striving toward freedom inherent in human nature. He had seen this very same struggle in the people in camp. Freedom, it seemed, was immortal on both sides of the barbed wire.” (Grossman, p. 110)
— Vasily Grossman, Forever Flowing
To know your soul is your own, that's what counts.
— Marty Rubin
The citizens of Ludania would finally be free, no longer forced into a class system that determined what language they could speak, what jobs they could do, or who they could be
— Kimberly Derting, The Pledge
Freedom is to stand naked at the moment, having no expectations, nothing to lose or to gain. The empty then is fulfilled, just to be emptied again at the next moment. The Absolute Freedom is, to become every path, at any given moment.
— Grigoris Deoudis
I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.
— Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve
[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present.
— Elizabeth I, Collected Works
Rise like the hero you were born to be, or die the slave you think you are.
— Michael Joseph Murano, Age of the Seer
Degraded bird, I give you back your eyes forever, ascend now whither you are tossed;Forsake this wrist, forsake this rhyme;Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost,But climb.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wine from These Grapes
You’re allowed to feel whatever you want. - Jason Dorsey
— Jasinda Wilder, Falling into Us
Maybe you've gotten through something and when you did you thought, I am leaving that behind and will never return. And that's a great way of thinking...for selfish jerks.If we actually care about people other than ourselves, we can't leave our problems behind and never return. If we don't take the freedom we've experienced and try to bring it to others, we are not becoming people worth becoming.
— Vince Antonucci, Guerrilla Lovers: Changing the World with Revolutionary Compassion
He opened his mouth, but stopped as he beheld her smile. Though she had no regrets about her choice, she felt something strangely like disappointment when he said, "As you wish.
— Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass
The challenge for people today--and it is not and easy one--is to maintain high personal standards even while feeling that one is living in a moral sewer.
— Nathaniel Branden
Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.
— Epictetus, The Discourses
Art, literature, and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim, one must first unequivocally posit oneself as a freedom. The restrictions that education and custom impose on a woman limit her grasp of the universe...Indeed, for one to become a creator, it is not enough to be cultivated, that is, to make going to shows and meeting people part of one's life; culture must be apprehended through the free movement of a transcendence; the spirit with all its riches must project itself in an empty sky that is its to fill; but if a thousand fine bonds tie it to the earth, its surge is broken. The girl today can certainly go out alone, stroll in the Tuileries; but I have already said how hostile the street is: eyes everywhere, hands waiting: if she wanders absentmindedly, her thoughts elsewhere, if she lights a cigarette in a cafe, if she goes to the cinema alone, an unpleasant incident can quickly occur; she must inspire respect by the way she dresses and behaves: this concern rivets her to the ground and self. "Her wings are clipped." At eighteen, T.E. Lawrence went on a grand tour through France by bicycle; a young girl would never be permitted to take on such an adventure...Yet such experiences have an inestimable impact: this is how an individual in the headiness of freedom and discovery learns to look at the entire world as his fief...[The girl] may feel alone within the world: she never stands up in front of it, unique and sovereign.
— Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
In learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of words, we have gained a great deal. But if we stop at that point and concern ourselves only with the marvels of the formation of a language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices, we do not reach that end, for grammar is not literature… When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself. The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends them. The laws are its wings. They do not keep it weighed down. They carry it to freedom. Its form is in law, but its spirit is in beauty. Law is the first step toward freedom, and beauty is the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law. Beauty harmonizes in itself the limit and the beyond – the law and the liberty.
— Rabindranath Tagore, Sadhana
man is free, in so far as he has the power of contradicting himself and his essential nature. Man is free even from his freedom; that is, he can surrender his humanity
— Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol 2: Existence and the Christ
Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
— Thomas Jefferson
The chains that break you, are the chains that make you. And the chains that make you, are the chains you break.
— Anthony Liccione
... the young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist.
— Malcolm X, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers' Power
I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free.But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.
— Rabindranath Tagore
The denunciation of injustice implies the rejection of the use of Christianity to legitimize the established order.
— Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation
If Adam and Eve were not hunter-gatherers, then they were certainly gatherers. But, then, consumer desire, or self-embitterment, or the 'itch,' as Schopenhauer called it, appeared in the shape of the serpent. This capitalistic monster awakens in Adam and Eve the possibility that things could be better. Instantly, they are cast out of the garden and condemned to a life of toil, drudgery, and pain. Wants supplanted needs, and things have been going downhill ever since. 
— Tom Hodgkinson, The Freedom Manifesto
Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her. "Good-by--because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again.
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening
With the Internet, we can choose the very communities we want to be a part of.
— Alex Shakar, The Savage Girl
Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude: Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder.
— D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism
And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation – the right to breathe air as nature provided it -- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?" (John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963, American University speech)
— John F. Kennedy
Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible.
— Ludwig von Mises, Economic Freedom and Interventionism
There are members of our body politic who tell us that the public interest is best served when government action is reduced to a minimum and especially when it is kept negative in character. But just now, the nation as a whole seems to be moving rather swiftly and decisively—as is the world as a whole—in the opposite direction. More and more, we Americans are initiating new forms of positive government action for the common good. Between these two tendencies the struggle becomes every day more open and more intense. And as we wage that conflict it is well to remember that the logic of the Constitution gives no backing to either of the two combatants, as against the other. We are left free, as any self-governing people must leave itself free, to determine by specific decisions what our economy shall be. It would be ludicrous to say that we are committed by the Constitution to the economic cooperations of socialism. But equally ludicrous are those appeals by which, in current debate, we are called upon to defend the practices of capitalism, of "free enterprise," so-called, as essential to the freedom of the American Way of Life. The American Way of Life is free because it is what we Americans freely choose—from time to time—that it shall be.
— Alexander Meiklejohn, Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People
It is mental slavery to cling to things that have stopped serving it’s purpose in your life.
— Chinonye J. Chidolue
I once had a mind of quicksand,That dragged ideas into its depths,Inhaling specks of sunlight,Every time I drew a breath,But the world thought me a hazard,When every word I spoke, I meant,So around me they put caution tape,And filled me with cement.
— Erin Hanson
There is nothing virtuous or noble about being "tolerant" of people whose attitudes and behaviors you approve of. If you don't defend the freedom of even those individuals whose attitudes and behaviors you find disgusting, narrow-minded and offensive, then you are not tolerant. To "tolerate" doesn't mean you like it or approve of it; it means only that you ALLOW it to EXIST--i.e., you refrain from violently interfering. The people who look to "government" to FORCE people to be "nice" are not tolerant.
— Larken Rose
Reconciliation means that those who have been on the underside of history must see that there is a qualitative difference between repression and freedom. And for them, freedom translates into having a supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to school and to have accessible health care. I mean, what's the point of having made this transition if the quality of life of these people is not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless.'-archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee, 2001
— Naomi Klein
What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. 
— Epictetus
To be a member of such a crowd ... is not much to be far removed from solitude
—  the freedom of everyone is assured by the freedom to which everyone else lays claim.
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exult
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
When a thing becomes indispensable it's time to give it up.
— Marty Rubin
But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress.
— Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman
Selflessness is humility. ... humility and freedom go hand in hand. Only a humble person can be free.
— Jeff Wilson, Buddhism of the Heart: Reflections on Shin Buddhism and Inner Togetherness
You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that.""Further?""With your life. You must become free."She did not explain it; she could not. It was not a matter of living alone, though in her case this had been necessary. The freedom she meant was self-conquest. It was not a natural state. It was meant only for those who would risk everything for it, who were aware that without it life is only appetites until the teeth are gone.
— James Salter, Light Years
If ever it's necessary to ride the bandwagon, it's done with one leg swinging out and eyes scoping the fields.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
The world I held so closely, she played me like a game,I released and left her laughing to stand on my own two feet.
— Coco J. Ginger
Music made her feel as if she were holding a lamp that cast a halo of light around her, and while she knew there were people and responsibilities in the darkness beyond it, she couldn't see them. The flame of what she felt when she played made her deliciously blind.
— Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Curse
Now I'm dreaming, will I ever find you now?I walk in circles but I'll never figure outWhat I mean to you, do I belongI try to fight this but I know I'm not that strongAnd I feel so helpless hereWatch my eyes are filled with fearTell me do you feel the sameHold me in your arms againI need your loveI need your timeWhen everything's wrongYou make it rightI feel so highI come aliveI need to be free with you tonightI need your love
— Ellie Goulding
For their lives, for their children's lives, they will give up what little freedom they had left.
— Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen
When religious people take the stance that they don’t owe anyone that is hurting closure or answers then God is not winning. Conflict continues because of lack of communication, fear and indifference.
— Shannon L. Alder
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith the
— Robert H. Jackson
There is no freedom without bravery.
— Ben Carson, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future
Freedom and wildness, that which we were born into, is a grand mystery and miracle that creates a openness reserved not for barring us in but for keeping us out of cages. It is our ability to find the truth that has been a survival tool for our species both individually and corporately.
— Leviak B. Kelly, Religion: The Ultimate STD: Living a Spiritual Life without Dogmatics or Cultural Destruction
Why would anyone want to live in a cage when we are free persons? This is the point to make, when we can rattle cages it means we are behind bars and are not free.
— Leviak B. Kelly, Religion: The Ultimate STD: Living a Spiritual Life without Dogmatics or Cultural Destruction
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.
— Euripides, The Phoenician Women
I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.
— John Marsden, A Killing Frost
First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.
— Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and Its Critics
There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable from the original impulse that can only be described as sacred. Something in the person (dare we call it a soul?) wants to be free, and it seeks its freedom any way it can. ... There is a drive for transcendence that is implicit in even the most sensual of desires.
— Mark Epstein, Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life - Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy
‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.
— Emma Goldman
Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.
— Susan Sontag
Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.
— Pericles
At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.
— Diane Ackerman, The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds
It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely. In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.
— Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
In modern states, the citizen is politically impotent. A citizen, it is true, may complain, make suggestions, or cause disruptions, but in the ancient world these were privileges that belonged to any slave.
— Mark Mirabello, Handbook for Rebels and Outlaws
It is not about knowing, but about living.
— Victor Manuel Rivera, In Search of True Freedom
You are either free or not free
— Malcolm X, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers' Power
For any human being, freedom is essential, crucial, to our dignity and our ability to be fully human.
— Izzeldin Abuelaish, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
— Carl Schurz