freedom

When we lose the right to be different,
we lose the privilege to be free.

~ Charles Evans Hughes ~

Freedom is knowing who you really are.

~ Linda Thomson ~

Freedom — to walk free and own no superior.

~ Walt Whitman ~

You can only be free if I am free.

~ Clarence Darrow ~

If you think you’re free,
there’s no escape possible.

~ Ram Dass ~

Within yourself
deliverance must be searched for,
because each man makes his own prison.

~ Sir Edwin Arnold ~

A forest bird never wants a cage.

~ Henrik Ibsen ~

If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free, —
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

~ Richard Lovelace ~

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

~ Rosa Luxemburg ~

Liberty is being free from
the things we don’t like
in order to be slaves of
the things we do like.

~ Ernest Benn ~

How does the Meadow flower
its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower
is free down to its root,
and in that freedom bold.

~ William Wordsworth ~

Governing sense, mind and intellect,
intent on liberation, free from desire,
fear and anger, the sage is forever free.

~ Bhagavad Gita ~

The free man is he who does not fear
to go to the end of his thought.

~ Leon Blum ~

To be what no one ever was,
to be what everyone has been:
Freedom is the mean of those extremes
that fence all effort in.

~ Mark Van Doren ~

He who dares not (reason), is a slave.

~ William Drummond ~

Only our individual faith in freedom
can keep us free.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

No man is free
who is not a master of himself.

~ Epictetus ~

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

~ Germaine Greer ~

Only very slowly and late
have men come to realize that
unless freedom is universal
it is only extended privilege.

~ Christopher Hill ~

The basic test of freedom is perhaps
less in what we are free to do than
in what we are free not to do.

~ Eric Hoffer ~

In the light of his vision
he has found his freedom:
his thoughts are peace,
his words are peace
and his work is peace.

~ Dhammapada ~

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner,
torn, but flying,
streams like the thunderstorm
against the wind.

~ Lord Byron ~

There are two freedoms —
the false, where a man is free
to do what he likes;
the true, where he is free
to do what he ought.

~ Charles Kingsley ~

Freedom, then, lies only in
our innate human capacity
to choose between
different sorts of bondage,
bondage to desire or self esteem,
or bondage to the light
that lightens all our lives.

~ Sri Madhava ~

Freedom is man’s capacity to take
a hand in his own development.
It is our capacity to mold ourselves.

~ Rollo May ~

He is free…
who knows how to keep
in his own hands
the power to decide.

~ Salvador De Madriaga ~

Those who expect to reap
the blessings of freedom must,
like men, undergo the fatigue
of supporting it.

~ Thomas Paine ~

Freedom is the sure possession
of those alone who have
the courage to defend it.

~ Pericles ~

Freedom is an internal achievement
rather than an external adjustment.

~ Adam Clayton Powell ~

A country cannot subsist
well without liberty,
nor liberty without virtue.

~ Jean Jacques Rousseau ~

Freedom of opinion can only exist when
the government thinks itself secure.

~ Bertrand Russell ~

There is no liberation without labor…
and there is no freedom which is free.

~ The Siri Singh Sahib ~

It is easy to believe in freedom of speech
for those with whom we agree.

~ Leo Mckern ~

It is quite possible for someone
to choose incorrectly or to judge badly;
but freedom must allow such mistakes.

~ Sang Kyu Shin ~

They want to be free and
they do not know how to be just.

~ Abbe Sieyes ~

By the will art thou lost,
by the will art thou found,
by the will art thou free,
captive, and bound.

~ Angelus Silesius ~

We have confused the free
with the free and easy.

~ Adlai E. Stevenson ~

We gain freedom when
we have paid the full price…

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~

The secret of freedom, courage.

~ Thucydides ~

We must determine whether
we really want freedom —
whether we are willing
to dare the perils of… rebirth…
For we never take a step forward
without surrendering something
that we may have held dear,
without dying to that which has been.

~ Virginia Hanson ~

Know this, that every man is free
To choose his life and what he’ll be.
For this eternal truth is given,
God will force no man to heaven.
He’ll call, persuade, direct aright,
Bless with wisdom, love, and light;
In nameless ways be good and kind,
But never force the human mind.

~ William C. Clegg ~

Set me free from evil passions, and
heal my heart of all inordinate affections;
that being inwardly cured and
thoroughly cleansed,
I may be made fit to love,
courageous to suffer,
steady to persevere.

~ Thomas ã Kempis ~

Who then is free?
The one who wisely is
lord of themselves,
who neither poverty,
death or captivity terrify,
who is strong to resist
his appetites and shun honors,
and is complete in themselves
smooth and round like a globe.

~ Horace ~

The Negro needs the white man
to free him from his fears.
The white man needs the Negro
to free him from his guilt.

~ Martin Luther King Jr. ~

The higher one climbs
on the spiritual ladder,
the more they will grant
others their own freedom,
and give less interference
to another’s state of consciousness.

~ Paul Twitchell ~