Quotes on Freedom

These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.

Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

Without Freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom;and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.