Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ask the first man you meet what he means by defending freedom, and he'll tell you privately he means defending the standard of living.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.

Mary McCarthy

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

Mark Twain

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

John Green

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

Patti Smith

Freedom is...the right to write the wrong words.

Martha Gellhorn

Freedom' is the most expensive possession there is; it has to be paid for with loneliness.

Marshall McLuhan

The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.

Michel de Montaigne

A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.

Michel de Montaigne

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

Michel de Montaigne

True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.

Michael Kimmelman

The paradox of the culture wars is that they have made celebrities out of some artists who would otherwise vanish. Censorship has become a growth industry. This may be the best argument, in the end, for unfettered freedom of expression.

Mark Twain

All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must begin in blood.

Mark Twain

We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege.

Mark Twain

A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.

Marianne Williamson

God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.

Marianne Williamson

Whatever situation you're in: Send love, place it in God's hands, open your heart to everyone involved - and it will turn out miraculously.

Frank Murphy

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion all have a double aspect - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Harry Frankfurt

It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking freedom of the will.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

Frances Wright

To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing ...

George Washington

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

George Washington

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.

George Washington

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

George Washington

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Santayana

Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.

George Santayana

A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.

George Santayana

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.

George Pataki

We need a President that all Americans can respect, not a celebrity who uses words like freedom and liberty like they are a punchline in a reality show.

George Orwell

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

George Orwell

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

John Quincy Adams

This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.