Those who believe in freedom of the will have never loved and never hated.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1893Communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1863Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.
—Louis Brandeis, 1928None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1943I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.
—Coretta Scott King, 1994Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.
—George Savile, c. 1690I prefer liberty with unquiet to slavery with quiet.
—Sallust, c. 35 BCThe ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.
—Margot Asquith, 1922If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1843Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the grand climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.
—Jean Baudrillard, 1987The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
—Agnes Repplier, 1916A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
—Amiri Baraka, 1962Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
—Rosa Luxemburg, 1918It’s easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing—that’s the Lord’s test.
—Mahalia Jackson, 1966Give us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1966Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
—Rudy Giuliani, 1999Let us make our own mistakes, but let us take comfort in the knowledge that they are our own mistakes.
—Tom Mboya, 1958In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.
—Phillis Wheatley, 1774If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?
—Olive Schreiner, 1883Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1755Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.
—Ken Bugul, 1982We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.
—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1991Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom where there is no more striving.
—Siddhartha Gautama, c. 500 BCAs I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
—Abraham Lincoln, c. 1858Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
—Pericles, c. 431 BCPeople will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
—Bayard Rustin, 1986That sweet bondage which is freedom’s self.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1813Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one.
—A.J. Liebling, 1960Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.
—H.L. Mencken, 1925Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant—democracy to many.
—Marguerite Gardiner, 1839Ah! Freedom is a noble thing!
—John Barbour, 1375