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Freedom

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“Over the past two decades, I have traveled across this country, meeting hardworking men and women in cities, towns, and villages. I have listened to your frustrations and am deeply inspired and motivated by you, the people of Gambia, and by your desire for change despite immense economic hardship and limitations on our freedom and personal liberty.”
Isatou Touray (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let martial note in triumph float And liberty extend its mighty hand A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers, The banner of the Western land. The emblem of the brave and true Its folds protect no tyrant crew; The red and white and starry blue Is freedom's shield and hope.”
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Stars and Stripes Forever" (1896), first strain
“„Paradox: While we want to control the other person's every move, or even every thought, we ourselves often desire freedom and liberty.”
Stanislav Stodulka (born 1982) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ERROR (groWsoul, 2024), p. 107
“Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly is not freedom, except in the minds of those who prefer darkness to light, and chains to liberty. The more true information we can acquire, the better for our enfranchisement.”
Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Intellectual Slavery" (January 1904); Papers of a Pariah (Longmans, Green & Co., 1907), p. 34
“We want liberty, justice and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”
Chappell Roan (born 1998) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This freedom of fixing my own schedule; of saying, 'No, I'm not going to work today, I'm going to go to the park. I'm not going to write today; I'll spend the day in a museum.' I have that big liberty now and I am relishing every minute of it.”
Bela Padilla (born 1990) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: . "Bela Padilla: Actor, Writer, Director". Esquire PH. 07 March 2022
“If the statue of liberty was a prominent symbol of freedom since the 19th century, the lithium battery becomes the one of the 21st century.”
Rachid Yazami (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like to think of my writing as an expression of love for the African people, a commitment to our capacity for justice and liberty, an insistence on dreaming our freedom as an inevitable eventuality. I want to be an incendiary bomb. And I know that stories have that power.”
Ani Kayode Somtochukwu (born 2000) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing the purpose of his writing. Writers Have the Obligation of Imagining the Future That Must Be Achieved, The Republic, 11 May 2025.
“Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.”
William Ellery Channing (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sachidananda Routray has well paid a tribute to Baji Rout with these opening lines of his poem: It is not a pyre, O Friends! When the country is in dark despair, It is the light of our liberty. It is our freedom-ﬁre.”
Baji Rout (1926–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sachidananda Routray in Rawal M. S. & Rawal Y. S. (2019). Saffron swords. Garuda Prakashan.
“The cause of freedom, in music as elsewhere, is now very nearly triumphant; but at a time when its adversaries were many and powerful, we can hardly imagine the sacred bridge of liberty kept by a more stalwart trio than Schubert the Armorer, Chopin the Refiner, and Liszt the Thunderer.”
Hugh Reginald Haweis (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These stony altars they have hurled Oppression back, have kept the boon Of liberty. Behold, how free The mountains stand, and eternally.”
Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stars of heaven are free because In amplitude of liberty Their joy is to obey the laws.”
William Watson (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I just haven’t been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can’t be a simple one. When I told you you’d been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong?”
John Brunner (1934–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin.”
Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) said by 1853 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A right that can't be defended is a right in name only. If you cannot by law defend your life, you have no right to life. If you cannot defend your property, you have no right of private property. And if you cannot defend your liberty, you are not a free man. It follows that inherent in the idea of an inalienable right is the right to mount a vigorous defense of the same rights.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Peerless Malevolence of Redcoat Piers Morgan”, WorldNetDaily.com, January 18, 2013.
“Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty.”
Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) said by 1498 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 378
“The free world knows, out of the bitter wisdom of experience, that vigilance and sacrifice are the price of liberty.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.”
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) said by 1803 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) said by 1803 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.”
Chief Joseph (1840–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nations in this chambers have supported the efforts of dissidents and reformers and civil society advocates in newly free societies throughout the new United Nations Democracy Fund. And we appreciate those efforts. And as young democracies around the world continue to make brave stands for liberty, multilateral organizations like the United Nations must continue to stand with them.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone. This is something that politicians in particular must keep in mind.”
Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Russia and the Independent States (1993) by Daniel C. Diller, p. 446
“Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea! every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, whereso'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: France: An Ode", st. 1 (1798)
“Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people, is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As Thou Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now; Thou lovest not, till from loving more Thou free My soul; Who ever gives, takes liberty; Oh, if Thou carest not whom I love, Alas! Thou lovest not me.”
John Donne (1572–1631) first seen 1619 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s last going into Germany (1619), stanza 3
“In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.”
Montesquieu (1689–1755) said by 1755 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Thomas Erskine in the trial of Thomas Paine, 1792
“[F]rom Plato's Republic... [t]he primary danger of liberty and free speech in a democracy is what results when everyone has his own... style of life... For then there can be no common logos, no possible unity, for the city.”
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And from above a voice fused half in iron Half in irony gives man a dreadful choice. The role is his, it says, Man makes and loads his own strange dice, They sum at his behest, He dooms himself. He is his own sad jest. Let go? Let be? Why do you ask this gift from Me? When, trussed and bound and nailed, You sacrifice your life, your liberty You hang yourself upon the tenterhook. Pull free!”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the good men, the good women, are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others; whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
John Adams (1735–1826) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)
“A Christian has no need of any law in order to be saved, since through faith we are free from every law. Thus all the acts of a Christian are done spontaneously, out of a sense of pure liberty. As Christians we do not seek our own advantage or salvation because we are already fully satisfied and saved by God’s grace through faith. Now our only motive is to do that which is pleasing to God.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives... libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.”
Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was the basic heritage of America — a heritage of tolerance, moderation, and individual liberty that was implanted from the very beginnings of European settlement in the New World. America has quite rightly been called a nation that was "born free.”
J. William Fulbright (1905–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion. The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.”
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) said by 1798 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address on Latin American Policy before the Southern Commercial Congress Mobile, Alabama (27 October 1913)
“[T]he nineteenth century was under the illusion that citizenship can take care of itself. It thought that a free society was "natural" and... would maintain itself by its own momentum. ..."[A]utomatic progress" would preserve liberty. ...[T]hese beliefs were false... they were destructive. They are not... the source and origin of Hitlerism, but they greatly facilitated its rise.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.”
John Rawls (1921–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state...such are well-regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.”
Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: State Gazette (Charleston) (8 September 1788)
“Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an inalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.”
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What a curious phenomenon it is, that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world, who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.”
Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fine, Rare Habit of Learning to Do Without", Every Week magazine, as quoted in The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol 95, No 31, 1 August 1918, pp. 18-19
“Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over one’s self; order is power.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 15 December [1859]
“The most important civil liberty... is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death...”
John Howard (born 1939) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Terrorism Summit (Friday, 5 August 2005)
“A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism, banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.”
Max Stirner (1806–1856) said by 1856 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cambridge 1995, p. 190
“O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.”
Langston Hughes (1901–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that each of us is free to go our own way, even if the ways some of us may choose to go seem sinful or shocking to our fellow citizens.”
Dan Savage (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well-regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free state, that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source