Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Freedom
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“That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All men are born free and equal; and each man is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of horse racing.”
Banjo Paterson (1864–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Australian Declaration of Independence", Racehorses and Racing, Ch. 1, epigraph. Reprinted in Song of the Pen, ed. R. Campbell and P. Harvie (1972), p. 275
“Again to the battle, Achaians! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance! Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree, It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.”
Thomas Campbell (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Thomas Campbell
“In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves.”
Susanna Kaysen (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776)
“A thousand creeds and battle-cries, A thousand warring social schemes, A thousand new moralities, And twenty thousand thousand dreams! Each on his own anarchic way, From the old order breaking free, — Our ruined world desires, you say, License, once more, not Liberty.”
Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. I am but God's humble instrument; but you may rest assured that as long as I live no one shall put a shackle on your limbs; and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this republic.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: After witnessing a man bow down to him. In Richmond, Virginia (April 4, 1865), as quoted in Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), by David Dixon Porter, p. 295
“Without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.”
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.”
Chelsea Manning (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Republican Party stands for individual liberty [and] free markets; its the party of growth, its the part of economic opportunity, those are things that benefit everyone. That's how we need to grow this party, by ensuring that those are the ideas that we are spreading.”
Glenn Jacobs (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The road to the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interventionism. To make Adam Smith's "simple and natural liberty" compatible with the needs of a human society was a most complicated affair.”
Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty that I contend for, is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest, to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. (p. 118)”
John Leland (Baptist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This new party was made up of Northern men from the ruins of the old Whig party, the Free-Soil Democracy and all friends of true republican liberty who desired to see the Sham Democracy overthrown, and the National Government brought back to the principles of Washington and Jefferson and the fathers of the Republic.”
Elbridge G. Spaulding (1809–1897) said by 1897 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your father reminded me of Lord Oliver Cromwell some fifty years ago in London. Lord Cromwell spoke of liberty. He fought the king to free England of tyranny. But after Lord Cromwell’s Ironsides had defeated the monarch, he turned ruthless. It was as if the monarchy had never been destroyed. Indeed, nothing had changed.”
L. K. Samuels (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are free to be our varietal selves; if there be no obstructions to the exchange of ideas and goods; if we have the liberty to move; society and”
Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leonard Read Journals, November 4, 1951
“[Man] is not free because he has no where that he may rightfully lay his head. Private property has monopolized the earth, and destroyed both his liberty and equality.”
George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The anti-free-speech fanatics on campuses and throughout the country have raised their hand against the idea that guarantees us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Allen C. Guelzo (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The kinder, more patient and attentive you are, the more of your bars I will remove, so that in some months—who knows how soon?—you will become perhaps more free than I am, in the sense that you will not want to curtail my liberty.”
Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) said by 1795 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It appears first, that liberty is a natural, and government an adventitious right, because all men were originally free.”
Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An essay on the slavery and commerce of the human species, particularly the African, translated from a Latin Dissertation, p. 54 (1788)
“To me "where the wild things are" is a place that exists in our minds; it's a place of liberty and shamelessness. It can take a split second or a lifetime to find it, but once you do, you'll be free.”
Alessia Cara (born 1996) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Video: Alessia Cara – 'Wild Things'" (7 March 2016), Rap-Up
“I am free and happy finally. I hope this means that the persecution I and my family have faced is over and that I have the liberty to speak my mind. That is what I will continue to fight for across the country.”
Diane Rwigara (born 1981) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , The EastAfrican (December 8, 2018).
“The thing he proposes to buy, is what cannot be sold—LIBERTY! For it, he has nothing to give: every thing of value which you possess, you obtained under a free constitution; part with it, and you must be not only a slave but an idiot.”
Henry Grattan (1746–1820) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Irish House of Commons against the union with Great Britain (15 January 1800), quoted in The Speeches of The Right Honourable Henry Grattan, in the Irish, and in the Imperial Parliament, Vol. III (1822), p…
“It is necessary for man free to take the liberty of being slave from time to time. (January 27, C.E.1892; Vergani, p. 53)”
Jules Renard (1864–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Captalism is the system of economic, spiritual, and political liberty that holds free choices as the cornerstone of a good society.”
Mark Pellegrino (born 1965) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1. The cornerstone of good society, Youtube (January 18th, 2025)
“This year, our call as Catholics to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free is more important than ever before.”
Roger Paul Morin (1941–2019) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November 21-22, US parishes hold campaign for victims of economic crisis (17 November 2009) Fides News Agency
“Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.”
Joseph Warren (1847–1923) said by 1923 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great God! we thank Thee for this home— This bounteous birth-land of the Free; Where wanderers from afar may come, And breathe the air of Liberty;— Still may her flowers untrampled spring, Her harvests wave, her cities rise; And yet till Time shall fold his wing, Remain earth's loveliest Paradise!”
William Jewett Pabodie (1813–1870) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Our Country", sts. 1 and 4. Reported in Anne C. Lynch (ed.) The Rhode-Island Book: Selections in Prose and Verse, from the Writings of Rhode-Island Citizens (Providence: H. Fuller, 1841) pp. 48–50
“I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.”
Giannina Braschi (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Freedom!" their battle-cry,— "Freedom! or leave to die!”
George Henry Boker (1823–1890) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Black Regiment", stanza 5, in Poems of the War (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p. 101.
“We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion.”
Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Programme of the World Revolution (1918), Ch. VII
“All peoples enjoy freedom, and freedom for the development of their culture... There is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union at all... I have many friends who are Jews.”
Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of January 1959, as quoted in "The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967" (1984), p. 66
“We think we have got freedom of the press. When one millionaire has ten newspapers and ten million people have no newspapers—that is not freedom of the press.”
Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be consistent and proper for us to join the war for democratic freedom, only if we would likewise be assured that democratic freedom in theory as well as in practice.”
Aung San (1915–1947) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address delivered at the meeting of East and West Association held on August 29, 1945, at the City Hall of Rangoon
“Truth and freedom are inextricably connected. We must speak the truth because otherwise we shall lose our freedom.”
Geert Wilders (born 1963) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Closing remarks in court (1 June 2011); quoted in "Dutch MP acquitted in ‘hate’ trial" by David Poort, Al Jazeera (23 June 2011).
“By depriving Islam of the means to destroy freedom, we are not violating freedom; we are preserving it.”
Geert Wilders (born 1963) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Let's Lock The Door To Islam", Breitbart.com (28 September 2016)
“Islam and freedom are not compatible. You see it in almost every country where it dominates. There is a total lack of freedom, civil society, rule of law, middle class; journalists, gays, apostates — they are all in trouble in those places. And we import it.”
Geert Wilders (born 1963) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with USA TODAY (21 February 2017)
“Hail, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!”
Joseph Hopkinson (1770–1842) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hail, Columbia! (1798).
“Liberal values like tolerance and individual freedom are prized most intensely when they are denied: People who live in brutal dictatorships want the simple freedom to speak, associate, and worship as they choose. But over time life in a liberal society comes to be taken for granted and its sense of shared community seems thin.”
Francis Fukuyama (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]hat's... the crisis. The number of liberal democracies measured by... Freedom House in its annual survey of freedom around the world has been in decline for 16 straight years, and the biggest declines recently have been in the two biggest liberal democracies, India and the United States. So... we're dealing with a big global problem.”
Francis Fukuyama (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Virtually any description of life under the monarchy makes anyone who knows Ceausescu's Bucharest wince with regret for the good old days. Architecture, cuisine, culture, press freedom, prison conditions, freedom to travel, to go to church: all seem to have been better before the communists. Only the quantity of whores in Bucharest appears to have remained constant.”
John Sweeney (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only respect in which man is superior to animals is that he can die when he wants to, not just when he has to. Maybe it's the one freedom you can always count on — the freedom to throw your life away.”
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) said by 1942 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We recognize, however dimly, that greater efficiency, ease, and security may come at a substantial price in freedom, that can be a version of oppression, that individual liberties surrendered for whatever good reason are freedom lost.”
Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.”
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to her husband Harold Nicolson (1 June 1919); published in Harold and Vita (1992), by Nigel Nicolson, p. 89
“You believe in freedom of speech for communists because what they say is true. You do not believe in freedom of speech for fascists because what they say is a lie.”
John Howard Lawson (1894–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A woman living with her mother has limited freedom; a man living with his mother has limited freedom and limited respect. For most men, the vacuum (of no support system) is so devastating, they’d rather agree with their wife than express their feelings and risk emotional withdrawal.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Grip your gun like a man, brother! Let's have a crack at Holy Russia, Mother Russia with her big, fat arse! Freedom, freedom! Down with the cross!”
Alexander Blok (1880–1921) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Twelve (1918); translation from Jon Stallworthy and Peter France (trans.) The Twelve, and Other Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 146.
“We must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image.”
Stanley Hauerwas (born 1940) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From "The Servant Community: Christian Social Ethics" (1983) in The Hauerwas Reader (2001) eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright
“Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom... Independence without freedom is worse than no independence.”
Ho Chí Minh (1890–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Vietnam: The Betrayal of a Revolution (20 October 1991), by Bui Tin
“We had the freedom to make mistakes. That's something very important. Unfortunately, this freedom for scientists gets more and more lost. … Otherwise, you do the common things. You don't dare to do something beyond what everybody else thinks.”
Heinrich Rohrer (1933–2013) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Heinrich Rohrer at the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 9 April, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.