Quotes on Freedom

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

No man is above the law, and no man is below it.

But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of the country.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.

The principle of tolerance and respect for freedom promoted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are today being manipulated and erroneously taken too far.

Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.

When we were told that by freedom we understood free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood. Wealth and economic well-being, we have asserted, are the fruits of freedom, while we should have been the first to know that this kind of happiness has been an unmixed blessing only in this country, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.

Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom.

From the freedom to explore comes the joy of learning. From knowledge acquired by personal initiative arises the desire for more knowledge. And from mastery of the novel and beautiful world awaiting every child comes self-confidence.

Freedom is the power to create out of nothing, the power of the spirit to create out of itself.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure.