Famous Quotes & Sayings

H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

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. ... Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that 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 be lost, and science can never regress.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.

Friedrich Nietzsche

How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Liberal institutions straightway cease being liberal the moment they are soundly established: Once this is attained, no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

Gerald R. Ford

We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government--a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance.

Gerald R. Ford

Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion?... Let us show that we can temper together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint into one consistent whole. Let us set an example for the world of a law-abiding America glorying in its freedom as well as its respect for law.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Without total freedom, every perception, every objective regard, is twisted. It is only the man who is totally free who can look and understand immediately. Freedom implies really, doesn't it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely to empty the whole content of the mind-that is real freedom. Freedom is not mere revolt from circumstances, which again breeds other circumstances, other environmental influences, which enslave the mind. We are talking about a freedom that comes naturally, easily, unasked for, when the mind is capable of functioning at its highest level.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

I have only one purpose: to make people free, to urge them towards freedom, to help them to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give them eternal happiness, will give them the unconditional realization of Self.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Freedom from something is not freedom.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Here is my secret: I don't mind what happens.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

There are two kinds of freedom: one is the freedom from something, which is a reaction; and the other is not a reaction, it is "being free."

Jiddu Krishnamurti

The guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out what is.

Marc Warren

I don't like planning, because it robs me of freedom, so I'd like a 24 hours that was full of surprises.

Paul Mooney

I do celebrate anything with freedom in it, you know.

Moira Kelly

I do have the freedom to choose what I want to do and I'll continue to do that.

Peter Thiel

I believe, basically, that individual freedom is very important.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is easier to rule others than to keep from being ruled oneself.

Louis Leterrier

I don't want to be Luc's henchman. I want to look for freedom.

Erich Fromm

Freedom is the fundamental condition for any growth.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

Herbert Hoover

A splendid storehouse of integrity and freedom has been bequeathed to us by our forefathers. In this day of confusion, of peril to liberty, our high duty is to see that this storehouse is not robbed of its contents.

Herbert Hoover

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Isabelle Eberhardt

Life on the open road is liberty... to be alone, to have few needs, to be unknown, everywhere a foreigner and at home, and to walk grandly and solitarily in conquest of the world.

Iqbal Quadir

Top-down approaches do not work. The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle.

Ilya Ehrenburg

There is nothing more wonderful than freedom of speech.

Jack Kemp

Democracy without morality is impossible.

Thomas Campbell

Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,/ And Freedom shrieked - as Kosciusko fell!

Candice Millard

'Honor in the Dust' is less about the freedom of the Philippines than the soul of the United States.