Freedom Quotes

To have freedom is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess.

Rahel.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Epictetus.

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

Montesquieu.

The cause of freedom is identified with the destinies of humanity, and in whatever part of the world it gains ground, by and by it will be a common gain to all who desire it.

Kossuth.

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people’s energy, intellect, and virtues. The savage makes his boast of freedom. But what is its worth? He is, indeed, free from what he calls thy yoke of civil institutions. But other and worse chains bind him. The very privation of civil government is in effect a chain; for, by withholding protection from property it virtually shackles the arm of industry, and forbids exertion for the melioration of his lot. Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

Channing.

This is what I call the American idea of freedom a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice the unchanging law of God.

Theodore Parker.

Void of freedom, what would virtue be?

Lamartine.

There is no legitimacy on earth but in a government which is the choice of the nation.

Joseph Bonaparte.

The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.

Havard.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Goethe.

True freedom consists with the observance of law. Adam was as free in paradise as in the wilds to which he was banished for its transgression.

Thornton.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

J.S. Mill.

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Macaulay.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all slaves beside.

Cowper.

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, these are principles that have guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.

Jefferson.

There must be no tampering with the delicate machinery by which religious liberty and equality are secured, and no fostering of any spirit which would tend to destroy that machinery.

James Cardinal Gibbons.

A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.

Walter Lippman.

Indignation boils my blood at the thought of the heritage we are throwing away; at the thought that, with few exceptions, the fight for freedom is left to the poor, forlorn and defenseless, and to the few radicals and revolutionaries who would make use of liberty to destroy, rather than to maintain, American institutions.

Arthur Garfield Hays.

Men are free when they are in a living homeland…. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is the rattling of chains, always was.

D.H. Lawrence.

Real freedom comes from the mastery, though knowledge, of historic conditions and race character which makes possible a free and intelligent use of experience for the purpose of progress.

Hamilton Wright Mabile.

I believe in freedom social, economical, domestic, political, mental and spiritual.

Elbert Hubbard.