Freedom Quotes - Page 34

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

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.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered.

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word "freedom" should ever be more than an empty political slogan.

The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will not cease to ring as long as man feels himself captive. As diverse as the cries for freedom may be, basically they all express one and the same thing: The intolerability of the rigidity of the organism and of the machine-like institutions which create a sharp conflict with the natural feelings for life. Not until there is a social order in which all cries for freedom subside will man have overcome his biological and social crippling, will he have attained genuine freedom.

No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.

The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit.

I believe that the most essential element of our defense of freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious liberty.

The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earlthy blessings - give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! . . . Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

Ask the first man you meet what he means by defending freedom, and he'll tell you privately he means defending the standard of living.

Oh Liberty! Liberty! What crimes are committed in your name!

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

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.

Take advice, but not orders. Only give yourself orders. Abraham Lincoln once said, 'Since I will be no one's slave, I will be no one's master.'

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.

As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery. We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.

Liberties are not given, they are taken.

... the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.