"One is never free alone, but only in the context of free and meaningful society"
Hegel
‘Only the individual can be purely, innocently revolutionary, rebellious. There is no need for any organisation and any structure. But once there is the other, organisation comes in. Society can never be for enlightenment, because people who become enlightened go, in a certain way, beyond the society. They go beyond the rules; they start living their freedom.’
"As a rule the individual is so unconscious that he altogether fails to see his own potentials for decision. Instead he is constantly and anxiously looking around for external rules and regulations which can guide him in his perplexity. Aside from general human inadequacy, a good deal of the blame for this rests with education, which promulgates the old generalisations and says nothing about the secrets of private experience. Thus, every effort is made to teach idealistic beliefs or conduct which people know in their charts they can never live up to, and such ideals are preached by officials who know that they themselves have never lived up to these high standards and never will. What is more, nobody ever questions the value of this kind of teaching."
Memories, Dreams and Reflections, by Carl Jung
"Man is not only free – I would like to say man is freedom. That is his essential core, that's his very soul. The moment you deny freedom to man you have denied him his most precious treasure, his very kingdom. Then he is a beggar... Once this is understood, that man is born AS freedom, then all the dimensions to grow open up. Then it is up to you what to become, what not to become. It is going to be your own creation. Then life becomes an adventure - not an unfoldment but an adventure, an exploration, a discovery. The truth is not already given to you, you have to create it. In a way, each moment you are creating yourself
Freedom is all I want
Osho comments on a text of Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian mystic: 'Freedom means tremendous responsibility; you are on your own and alone. Rabindranath is right: Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it, I feel ashamed - because it is not a question of hope; it is a question of taking a risk.’
"Are we not magnets that attract that which we most need. And what is it but fragments of your own self that you would discard that you may become free".
Kahlil Gribran
"All the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you chose to do with them is up to you".
Richard Bach
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandela
“You have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. You have the power, out of your soul's judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms which are divine. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will become like a plant. If of the senses, he will become brutish. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel and a son of God. And if, happy in the lot of no created thing, he withdraws into the centre of his own unity, his spirit, made one with God, in the solitary darkness of God, who is set above all things, he shall surpass them all.”
Pico della Mirandola
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.
Ramsey Clark
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
Simone Weil
"No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men."
John F. Kennedy
"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."
Thomas Jefferson
"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."
John Stuart Mill
The only part of the conduct of anyone 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.
John Stuart Mill
"A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy."
Friedrich A. Hayek
"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."
Ronald Reagan
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretences for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute."
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
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 freedom
Albert Einstein
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
Aldous Huxley
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Victor Frankl
Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.
C Wright Mills
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
Clarence Darrow
It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.
Dorothy Thompson
Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare.
Dorothy Thompson
We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.
Eleanor Holmes Norton
We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.
Epictetus
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
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.
Goethe
The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.
H.L.Mencken
I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
H.L.Mencken
Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness.
Henri Frederic Amiel
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings.
Hodding Carter
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
No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.
Jesse Jackson
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity.
John Dewey
Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.
John F. Kennedy
The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.
John F. Kennedy
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
John F. Kennedy
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
Gandhi
For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we sere as willing or unwitting instruments."
Noam Chomsky
If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.
Noam Chomsky
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
Pearl S. Bucke
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.
Payton Conway March
There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.
The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.
This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.
Rabbi Sherwin Wine
Freedom lies in being bold.
Robert Frost
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
Rosa Luxemburg
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
Somerset Maugham
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him
Thomas Jefferson
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson
Creative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy.
Unknown
