The Nature of Freedom

"In my soul, I am free."
   - Paul Twitchell

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way."
   - Victor Frankl ("Man's Search for Meaning")

"Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it."
   - Germaine Greer

"The truth is all might be free: if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought."
   - Samuel Adams

"I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice."
   - Upton Sinclair

"The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea... is freedom... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices."
   - "John Quincy Adams" (in the movie "Amistad")

"They can take our lives but they can never take our freedom!"
   - "William Wallace" (in the movie "Braveheart")

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage."
   - Thucydides

"It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races."
   - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Freedom in Society

"Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave… O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
   - American National Anthem

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
   - Delores Ibarruri

"Every subject's duty is the king's, but every subjects soul is his own."
   - William Shakespeare ("Henry V")

"Live free or die."
   - Motto of the State of New Hampshire

"Give us, us free!"
   - "Cinque" (in the movie "Amistad")

"Love is the only freedom in the world because is so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course."
   - Kahlil Gibran

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."
   - Patrick Henry

"Peace purchased at the cost of any part of our national integrity is fit only for slaves, and even when purchased for such a price it is a delusion, for it cannot last."
   - William E. Borah

"Peace at any price is always too expensive."
   - Anonymous

"Arms once taken up should never be laid down but upon one of three conditions: a safe peace, a complete victory, or an honourable death."
   - Jeanne Albret, Queen of Navarre

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it...always."
   - Mohandas K. Ghandi

"We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state."
   - Margaret Thatcher

"Civilization is a method of living and an attitude of equal respect for all people."
   - Jane Addams

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."
   - Margaret Mead

Freedom of Thought

"The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come..."
   - Umberto Eco ("Foucault's Pendulum")

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
   - Galileo Galilei

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."
   - Henry Emerson Fosdick

"Truth burns up error."
   - Sojourner Truth

"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger."
   - Abbie Hoffman

"I want to be a free rover on the breezy common of the universe."
   - Harriet Martineau

"A man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties."
   - Aristotle

"Wisdom is a science by which we discriminate between things spiritually good and evil. It is the science of sciences, for alone, it can understand the value, the true price, the real uses, the danger, and the potentialities of the soul."
   - Joubert

"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.... As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never to be lost, and science can never regress."
   - J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err."
   - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
   - T. S. Elliot

Freedom of Self

"Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom.
Our thoughts, our words and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw around ourselves."
   - Swami Vivekananda

"Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."
   - Jean Paul Sartre

"Yes! To this thought I hold with firm persistence;
......the last result of wisdom stamps it true:
He only earns freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew."
   - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
   - Bible: John (8:32)

"The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
   - Bible: Psalm (27:1)

"No man is free who is not master of (commands not) himself."
   - Epictetus

"How will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?"
   - Miguel de Cervantes

"Alexander esteemed it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies."
   - Plutarch

"Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, a provision in old age."
   - Aristotle

"Beauty Fades but Dumb is Forever."
   - Judge Judy Schiendlin
(on Divorce Insurance which means everyone getting a job!)

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
   - Benjamin Franklin

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."
   - "William Wallace" (in the movie "Braveheart")

"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man dies but once."
   - derivative of William Shakespeare

"Living with integrity means:
Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships.
Asking for what you want and need from others.
Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension.
Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values.
Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe."
   - Barbara De Angelis

Becoming Free

"Let freedom ring!"
   - American Proverb

"I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land."
   - Harriet Tubman

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! Free at last!"
   - Dr. Martin Luther King

"Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do."
   - Harriet Beecher Stowe

"There is no expedient that a man will not resort to in order to avoid the real effort of thinking."
   - Sir Joshua Reynolds

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is a superstition. It does not exist in nature."
   - Helen Keller

"The great lesson that nature seems to teach us at all ages is self-dependence, self-protection, self-support. In the hours of our keenest sufferings all are thrown wholly on themselves for consolation."
   - Elizabeth Cady Stanton