An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON FREEDOM 2
The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831, German philosopher)
The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831, German philosopher)
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831, German philosopher)
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
Frank Herbert (1920-1986, American writer)
Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions...
Kenneth Hildebrand (1944-, American author)
Only very slowly and late have men come to realize that unless freedom is universal it is only extended privilege.
Christopher Hill (1912-2003, British historian)
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894, American author, wit, poet)
Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.
Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964, American President (31st))
Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.
Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964, American President (31st))
We are free to yield to truth.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.
Vernon Howard (1935-1992, American author, speaker)
We clearly realize that freedom's inner kingdom cannot be touched by exterior attacks.
Vernon Howard (1935-1992, American author, speaker)
American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense.
Edgar Watson Howe (1853-1937, American journalist, author)
Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it.
Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915, American author, publisher)
Liberation is not deliverance.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885, French poet, dramatist, novelist)
The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963, American President (35th))
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963, American President (35th))
Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767-1835, German statesman, philologist)
Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978, American Vice President)
A forest bird never wants a cage.
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906, Norwegian dramatist)
Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
If we catch a glimpse of freedom, we wish to possess it. If we catch a glimpse of death, we want nothing to do with it. One we cannot have; the other we cannot avoid.
Jeremy P. Johnson
The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
Lady Bird Johnson (1912, Texas' first First Lady)
All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.
Grace Patricia Kelly (1929-1982, American actress and Princess of Monaco)
Set me free from evil passions, and heal my heart of all inordinate affections; that being inwardly cured and thoroughly cleansed, I may be made fit to love, courageous to suffer, steady to persevere.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963, American President (35th))
The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.
Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968, American attorney general, senator)
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855, Danish philosopher, writer)
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855, Danish philosopher, writer)
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875, British author, clergyman)
All we have of freedom -- all we use or know -- this our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936, British author of Prose, Verse)
Freedom never yet was given to nations as a gift, but only as a reward, bravely earned by one's own exertions.
Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894, Hungarian statesman, a leader of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution)
Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something -- and it is only such love that can know freedom.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986, Indian theosophist)
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Kris Kristofferson (1936-, American singer, songwriter)
Until economic freedom is attained for everybody, there can be no real freedom for anybody.
Suzanne La Follette
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891, American poet, critic, editor)
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891, American poet, critic, editor)
Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930, British author)
No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.
Douglas Macarthur (1880-1964, American army general during WW II)
A hot bath! I cry, as I sit down in it! Again as I lie flat, a hot bath! How exquisite a pleasure, how luxurious, fervid and flagrant a consolation for the rigors, the austerities, the renunciation of the day.
Rose Macaulay (1881-1958, British novelist, essayist)
Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924, Russian revolutionary leader)
When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the "freedom of the press" goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924, Russian revolutionary leader)
When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?
Samuel Levenson
Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, American President (16th))
Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, American President (16th))
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, American President (16th))
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, American President (16th))
A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974, American journalist)
If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, -- Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
Richard Lovelace (1618-1657, British poet)
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer.
Marshall Lumsden
Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more.
Martin Luther (1483-1546, German leader of the protestant reformation)
What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice.
Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982, American writer)
Freedom, then, lies only in our innate human capacity to choose between different sorts of bondage, bondage to desire or self esteem, or bondage to the light that lightens all our olives.
Sri Madhava
He is free... who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide.
Salvador De Madriaga (1886-1978, Spanish writer, scholar, diplomat)
The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.
Ramana Maharshi
I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.
Malcolm X (1925-1965, American black leader, activist)
If you're not ready to die for it, put the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.
Malcolm X (1925-1965, American black leader, activist)
The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too.
Malcolm X (1925-1965, American black leader, activist)
When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire... or preserve his freedom.
Malcolm X (1925-1965, American black leader, activist)
You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.
Malcolm X (1925-1965, American black leader, activist)
Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Nelson Mandela (1918-, South African president)
Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
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.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
Rollo May (1931-, American psychologist)
It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.
Rollo May (1931-, American psychologist)
It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree.
Leo McKern
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956, American editor, author, critic, humorist)
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 (1806-1873, British philosopher, economist)
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
John Milton (1608-1674, British poet)
None can love freedom heartily, but good men... the rest love not freedom, but license.
John Milton (1608-1674, British poet)
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
Charles De Montesquieu (1689-1755, French jurist, political philosopher)
There's something contagious about demanding freedom.
Robin Morgan (1941-, American feminist author, poet)
Freedom! Equality! Brotherhood!
French Revolution Motto
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)
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972, American poet, critic)
Yet we can maintain a free society only if we recognize that in a free society no one can win all the time. No one can have his own way all the time, and no one is right all the time.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994, American President (37th))
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
Marks on paper are free -- free speech -- press -- pictures all go together I suppose.
Georgia O'Keeffe (American painter)
As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.
Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967, American nuclear physicist)
If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they will take sandwiches.
Lord Boyd Orr (1880-1971, Scottish biologist)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
George Orwell (1903-1950, British author, "Animal Farm")
I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.
George Orwell (1903-1950, British author, "Animal Farm")
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809, Anglo-American political theorist, writer)
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