Freedom Quotes - Page 12

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Freedom is the recognition of necessity.

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can't have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I'd rather not be in a cage. I'd rather be dead. And it's real simple. And I think it's not that uncommon.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

To be free one needs constant and unrelenting vigilance over one's weaknesses. A vigilance which requires a moral energy most of us are incapable of manufacturing. We relax back into the moulds of habit. They are secure, they bind us and keep us contained at the expense of freedom. To break the moulds, to be heedless of the seductions of security is an impossible struggle, but one of the few that count. To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble.

The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Experience has taught us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession, and when the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.

When thee builds a prison, thee had better build with the thought ever in thy mind that thee and thy children may occupy the cells.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

It appears to me that those who rely simply on the weight of authority to prove any assertion, without searching out the arguments to support it, act absurdly. I wish to question freely and to answer freely without any sort of adulation. That well becomes any who are sincere in the search for truth.

Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.

The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

The first maxim of a man who loves liberty, should be never to grant to rulers an atom of power that is not most clearly and indispensably necessary for the safety and well being of society.

Question your thoughts. Question your stories. Question your assumptions. Question your opinions. Question your conclusions. Question them all into utter emptiness, stillness and joy. The keys to freedom are in your hands. Use them.