Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Freedom
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“What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Still, this way of life, peculiar as it seems, is not necessarily a bad system. I suspect that every style of life works our to be a tradeoff between various kinds of freedoms. There are naturally many different freedoms, and sometimes one freedom implies the absence of another.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have a lived life instead of a career. Put yourself in the safekeeping of good taste. Lived freedom will compensate you for a few losses... If you don't like the style of others, cultivate your own. Get to know the tricks of reproduction, be a self-publisher even in conversation, and then the joy of working can fill your days. - George Konrad”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where there is seeming contentment with slavery, there is certain treachery to freedom.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dark and sad will be the hour to this nation when it forgets to pay grateful homage to its greatest benefactors. The offering we bring to-day is due alike to the patriot soldiers dead and their noble comrades who still live; for, whether living or dead, whether in time or eternity, the loyal soldiers who imperiled all for country and freedom are one and inseparable.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.”
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Red Association" (1870)
“Freedom is the absolute right of every human being to seek no other sanction for his actions but his own conscience, to determine these actions solely by his own will, and consequently to owe his first responsibility to himself alone.”
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) said by 1876 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, Daniel Guérin, New York: NY, Monthly Review Press (1970) p. 31
“Faith of consciousness is freedom Faith of feeling is weakness Faith of body is stupidity.”
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.”
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... as a much-banned author, I'm interested in freedom of speech.”
J. K. Rowling (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.”
J. K. Rowling (born 1965) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tweet (12 December 2021), as cited in "JK Rowling condemns police guidance which lets rapists self-identify as women", The Telegraph (13 December 2021)
“Let us disperse from our aloofness and serve the weak who made us strong, and cleanse the country in which we live. Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Khalil in Spirits Rebellious (1908) "Khalil The Heretic" Part 3
“The great Voltaire once accused Spinoza of ‘abusing metaphysics’. Is not the uncompromising nature of metaphysics more important today than ever? Has not liberated thinking become the most valued freedom at a time when political systems, social constraints, moral codes and political correctness often control our thinking?”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Daniel Barenboim, "The Purpose of the State is Freedom" (DanielBarenboim.com, December 2003)
“What can be said is that Spinoza is, without question, one of history's most eloquent proponents of a secular, democratic society and the strongest advocate for freedom and toleration in the early modern period.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)
“For Spinoza, by contrast, there is to be no criminalization of ideas in the well-ordered state. Libertas philosophandi, the freedom of philosophizing, must be upheld for the sake of a healthy, secure and peaceful commonwealth and material and intellectual progress.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Steven Nadler, in his article Spinoza's Vision of Freedom, and Ours (The New York Times, 5 February 2012)
“Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature where freedom burns!”
Michael Moore (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're my bondage and my freedom, my flesh burning like a naked summer night, you're my country. Hazel eyes marbled green, you're awesome, beautiful, and brave, you're my desire always just out of reach.”
Nâzım Hikmet (1901–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there a man who will not agree with me, that to talk of “freedom without the ballot” is mockery, is slavery, to the women of this republic, precisely as New England’s orator, Wendell Phillips, at the close of the late war declared it to be to the newly emancipated black men?”
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.”
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Running Wild (1988)
“The human body as an obedient coolie, to be fed and hosed down, and given just enough sexual freedom to sedate itself.”
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As human beings, we are endowed with this freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.”
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance.”
Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to stress again that human rights are not peripheral to the foreign policy of the United States. Our pursuit of human rights is part of a broad effort to use our great power and our tremendous influence in the service of creating a better world, a world in which human beings can live in peace, in freedom, and with their basic needs adequately met.”
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at a White House meeting commemorating the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (6 December 1978), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978…
“Along with other industrial democracies who are our friends, we lead the way in technological innovation. Our combined economies are more than three times as productive as those Of the Soviet Union and all its allies. Our political institutions are based on human freedom. Our open system encourages individual initiative and creativity, and that in turn strengthens our entire society.”
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.”
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Private ownership of tools, a basis of freedom when tools are simple becomes a basis of enslavement when tools are complex.”
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We promised the Iraqi people freedom, democracy, security and a new and far better life.”
Anthony Zinni (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was given the freedom to discover my own inclination and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.”
Graham Greene (1904–1991) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freedom of Thought," speech accepting the Jerusalem Prize (6 April 1981)
“Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) said by 1800 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tyranny is always better organised than freedom.”
Charles Péguy (1873–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.”
Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–1963) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by John F. Kennedy in a speech at Yale University (11 June 1962).
“Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: H.L. Mencken," The Washington Post (14 September 1980); reprinted in A View from the Stands (1986)
“A man who learns to read and write is half-way to freedom by that one fact.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (p. 196)
“The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. That’s a personal evaluation, of course.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unlimited freedom, absolute democracy, are reefs upon which all the republics have come to grief.”
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 139
“Although, therefore, the theory of nationality is more absurd and more criminal than the theory of socialism, it has an important mission in the world, and marks the final conflict, and therefore the end, of two forces which are the worst enemies of civil freedom, — the absolute monarchy and the revolution.”
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.”
John Adams (1735–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.”
John Adams (1735–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present generation, to preserve your Freedom! — I hope you will make a good use of it. — if you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it. —”
John Adams (1735–1826) first seen 1777 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218
“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”
John Adams (1735–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”
John Adams (1735–1826) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Thomas Jefferson (15 July 1817)
“Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain; That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth be found.”
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) said by 1848 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”
Abigail Adams (1744–1818) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Adams (24 September 1774)
“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
A. J. Liebling (1904–1963) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A. J. Liebling, in "Do you belong in journalism?", The New Yorker (14 May 1960); sometimes paraphrased : Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
Also quoted by: H. L. Mencken (misattributed)
“The increasing influence of the Bible is marvelously great, penetrating everywhere. It carries with it a tremendous power of freedom and justice guided by a combined force of wisdom and goodness.”
Thomas More (1478–1535) said by 1535 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 34.