Freedom

"Dico Tibi Verum, Libertas Optima Rerum: Nunquam Servili Sub Nexu Vivito, Fili"

"In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists."

"If man were not free, then he could not conceive of causality at all, and could not form any concept of it. Insight into lawfulness is already freedom from it."

"Give a man a free hand and he'll try to put it all over you."

"[I]f they do not have virtue enough to support the most Glorious Cause ever human beings were engaged in, they don’t deserve the blessings of freedom."

"To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men. The human race Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised Against injustice, ignorance, and lust, The inquisition yet would serve the law, And guillotines decide our least disputes. The few who dare, must speak and speak again To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God, No vested power in this great day and land Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry Loud disapproval of existing ills; May criticise oppression and condemn The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws That let the children and childbearers toil To purchase ease for idle millionaires. Therefore I do protest against the boast Of independence in this mighty land. Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link. Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave. Until the manacled slim wrists of babes Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee, Until the mother bears no burden, save The precious one beneath her heart, until God's soil is rescued from the clutch of greed And given back to labor, let no man Call this the land of freedom."

"There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled — by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists."

"If you're not ready to die for it, take the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary."

"If this is a country of freedom, let it be a country of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it."

"People are fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that we've been using toward getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying 'We Shall Overcome'. We've got to fight until we overcome."

"Stop singing and start swinging. You can't sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can sing, but singing didn't help him to become the heavyweight champion of the world; swinging helped him become the heavyweight champion."

"You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it."

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it."

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

"We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it."

"True freedom is not a freedom of choice made from a safe distance, like choosing between a strawberry cake or a chocolate cake; true freedom overlaps with necessity, one makes a truly free choice when one's choice puts at stake one's very existence — one does it because one simply "cannot do it otherwise.""

"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom."

"The freedom that socialism gave every man and enshrined in its constitution is the freedom not to be a beggar and not to be exploited. Freedom from the fear of losing one’s job tomorrow, of being unable to pay for one’s housing, food, clothing and vital medicines. Of not being able to pay for the education and feed one’s children. Not being able to support elderly parents. A freedom to feel a full individual and not a human good sold in the labour market. A freedom that was granted to all regardless of their background, nationality or profession. To workers, peasants, scientists and artists. Only such freedom can be recognised as true freedom. Its absence makes all the other freedoms meaningless."

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."

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

"I'M FREE! — I'm free, And freedom tastes of reality, I'm free — I'm free, An' I'm waiting for you to follow me."

"Take my love, take my land Take me where I cannot stand I don't care, I'm still free You can't take the sky from me"

"Believe in all the good things you keep inside There is no freedom in life without freedom of mind."

"Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives."

"Whose service is perfect freedom."

"…for righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; To rule o'er freemen, should themselves be free."

"Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?"

"Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah hath triumphed—his people are free."

"Hope for a season bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! * * * * * * O'er Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow."

"England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland."

"Nulla enim minantis auctoritas apud liberos est."

"O what a loud and fearful shriek was there! … Ah me! they view'd beneath an hireling's sword Fallen Kosciusco."

"No, Freedom has a thousand charms to show That slaves, howe'er contented, never know."

"I want free life, and I want fresh air; And I sigh for the canter after the cattle, The crack of the whip like shots in battle, The medley of horns, and hoofs, and heads That wars, and wrangles, and scatters and spreads; The green beneath and the blue above, And dash, and danger, and life and love."

"I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"My angel,—his name is Freedom,— Choose him to be your king; He shall cut pathways east and west, And fend you with his wing."

"We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights and shall; Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall. For what avail the plough or sail, Or land, or life, if freedom fail?"

"I gave my life for freedom—This I know; For those who bade me fight had told me so."

"Bred in the lap of Republican Freedom."

"Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew."

"Frei athmen macht das Leben nicht allein."

"Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod, They have left unstained, what there they found,— Freedom to worship God."

"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."

"One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom."

"All we have of freedom—all we use or know— This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago."

"The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom."

"…That this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom."

"I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free."

"Freedom needs all her poets; it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings."