Freedom

"Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden"

"Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor."

"Quicquid multis peccatur, inultum est."

"They can only set free men free… And there is no need of that: Free men set themselves free."

"An quisquam est alius liber, nisi ducere vitam Cui licet, ut voluit?"

"Oh! let me live my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please."

"Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men."

"Free soil, free men, free speech, Fremont."

"O, nur eine freie Seele wird nicht alt."

"Freiheit ist nur in dem Reich der Träume Und das Schöne blüht nur im Gesang."

"Der Mensch ist frei geschaffen, ist frei Und würd' er in Ketten geboren."

"Nemo liber est, qui corpori servit."

"The last link is broken That bound me to thee, And the words thou hast spoken Have render'd me free."

"Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quæ velis, et quæ sentias dicere licet."

"Of old sat Freedom on the heights The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights; She heard the torrents meet."

"Red of the Dawn Is it turning a fainter red? so be it, but when shall we lay The ghost of the Brute that is walking and hammering us yet and be free?"

"The nations lift their right hands up and swear Their oath of freedom."

"Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government."

"Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles."

"Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own."

"How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and in that freedom, bold."

"We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held."

"Modern life means democracy, democracy means freeing intelligence for independent effectiveness—the emancipation of mind as an individual organ to do its own work. We naturally associate democracy, to be sure, with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos."

"But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America."

"For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?"

"You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?"

"What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them, and with this as the foremost object ideas of freedom and self-reliance and service to the community were obscured to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a co-operative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share…. Athens had reached the point of rejecting independence, and the freedom she now wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result…. If men insisted on being free from the burden of a life that was self-dependent and also responsible for the common good, they would cease to be free at all. Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms."

"The greatest Glory of a free-born People,Is to transmit that Freedom to their Children."

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free."

"A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes."

"The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection."

"The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."

"The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence, is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

"There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism."

"Quisnam igitur liber? Sapiens, sibi qui imperiosus; Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis; et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus."

"When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."

"A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work."

"The odd thing about freedom is how, at the extreme, it comes to resemble its opposite. Think of gridlock on the freeway: everybody free to drive but nobody able to move."

"Berdyaev makes an important distinction between two senses of the world freedom, between freedom as a means and freedom as an end. By the first we mean freedom to direct one's own life, to choose between good and evil as one understands them; by the second the freedom which consists in liberation from one's lower nature for the service of what is highest and best. As Berdyaev puts it, we mean by one and the same word "either that initial and irrational liberty which is prior to good and evil and determines their choice, or else that intelligent freedom which is our final liberty in truth and goodness.""

"Freedom for me is to live with dignity, and if my dignity and freedom is controlled by a man, I will never be free."

"Wisdom is not absolute autocracy and independence of the soul, but obedience and subordination of the soul to higher things, through which it acquires the ability to dominate and subordinate lower things. Only in this way does it become subordinate and mistress. “'Servire Deo libertas est”'. Humility and freedom are equally necessary."