Famous Quotes & Sayings

Mercedes Lackey

The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.

Terence

We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.

Nicolas Chamfort

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

Nikolai Berdyaev

Freedom is the power to create out of nothing, the power of the spirit to create out of itself.

Nikos Kazantzakis

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Eric Hoffer

Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.

Eric Hoffer

Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.

Eric Hoffer

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

We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.

James F. Cooper

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

James F. Cooper

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.

James F. Cooper

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.

James Anthony Froude

To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.

Henry A. Kissinger

Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

John Milton

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.

John Milton

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

John Milton

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

John Milton

For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.

John Milton

For so I created them free and free they must remain.

Norman Cousins

In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.

Nina Simone

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Nina Simone

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

Mike Tyson

Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent.

Miguel de Cervantes

Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and, on for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.

Neil Gaiman

Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

John W. Gardner

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

John Steinbeck

This I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.

John Steinbeck

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

John Steinbeck

The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

Friedrich Durrenmatt

Humans need justice in the here and now and grace in the thereafter. Justice in the here and now is possible only without freedom,and grace in the thereafter only through the freedom of God.

Friedrich Engels

Freedom is the recognition of necessity.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Our submission to general principles is necessary because we cannot be guided in our practical action by full knowledge and evaluation of the consequences. So long as men are not omniscient, the only way in which freedom can be given to the individual is by such general rules to delimit the sphere in which the decision is his. There can be no freedom if the government is not limited to particular kinds of action but can use its powers in any ways which serve particular ends.

Friedrich August von Hayek

The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.