Archive

Quotes

Ah! Freedom is a noble thing!

—John Barbour, 1375

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.

—H.L. Mencken, 1925

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

—Pericles, c. 431 BC

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1991

Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.

—George Savile, c. 1690

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

—Amiri Baraka, 1962

Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the grand climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.

—Jean Baudrillard, 1987

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.

—Margot Asquith, 1922

Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one.

—A.J. Liebling, 1960

I prefer liberty with unquiet to slavery with quiet.

—Sallust, c. 35 BC

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant—­democracy to many.

—Marguerite Gardiner, 1839

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

—Rosa Luxemburg, 1918

That sweet bondage which is freedom’s self.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1813