Whatever the price, identify it now. What will you have to go through to get where you want to be? There is a price you can pay to be free of the situation once and for all. It may be a fantastic price or a tiny one—but there is a price.
—Harry Browne (1933–2006) American Author, Economist, Politician
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
—Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American Founding Father
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
—Kris Kristofferson (1936–2024) American Singer, Songwriter, Actor
How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Freedom is not found in escaping “this” or possessing “that” . . . Real freedom is the active understanding that the world of “this and that” is a window into a higher order of reality not limited by the opposites.
—Guy Finley
If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.
—Noam Chomsky (b.1928) American Linguist, Social Critic
There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.
—William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) English Liberal Statesman, Prime Minister
Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.
—Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American Journalist, Television
I tell you I must go! Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you?. Do you think I am an automaton?.-a machine without feelings?. And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup?. Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?. You think wrong!
—Charlotte Bronte (1816–1855) English Novelist, Poet
Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.
—William Glasser (1925–2013) American Psychiatrist, Author, Speaker
I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave. His fetters fall… freedom and slavery are mental states.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon the labors of cabinets and foreign offices.
—Richard Cobden (1804–65) British Politician, Economist
Depend upon it that the lovers of freedom will be free.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.
—Thucydides (c.455?c.400 BCE) Greek Historian
The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
No nation deserves freedom or can long retain it which does not win it for itself? Revolutions must be made by the people and for the people.
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) Italian Patriot, Political Leader
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.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
There is no better measure of a person than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.
—Wilma Askinas
For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.
—Eric Sevareid (1912–92) American Journalist, Author
People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally “being lived.” They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
He who is conceived in a cage, yearns for the cage.
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933–2017) Russian Poet, Dissident
Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
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