Freedom is a fundamental part of the human experience, inspiring countless thoughts, stories, and reflections throughout history. Whether it’s personal freedom, political liberty, or the simple joy of living life on your own terms, these 145 inspiring freedom quotes capture the essence of what it means to be truly free. Dive into these powerful words to motivate, empower, and remind yourself of the value of freedom in all its forms.
1. “America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.” - Thomas L. Friedman
2. “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” - Robert A. Heinlein
3. “We, unaccustomed to courageexiles from delightlive coiled in shells of lonelinessuntil love leaves its high holy templeand comes into our sightto liberate us into life.Love arrivesand in its train come ecstasiesold memories of pleasureancient histories of pain.Yet if we are bold,love strikes away the chains of fearfrom our souls.We are weaned from our timidityIn the flush of love's lightwe dare be braveAnd suddenly we seethat love costs all we areand will ever be.Yet it is only lovewhich sets us free.” - Maya Angelou
4. “We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.” - B. W. Powe
5. “My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.” - Alan Moore
6. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” - Thomas Jefferson
7. “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” - Toni Morrison
8. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C. S. Lewis
9. “Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.” - Albert Einstein
10. “He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.” - Aristotle
11. “Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.” - Nelson Mandela
12. “I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” - Thomas Jefferson
13. “In times of war, the law falls silent.Silent enim leges inter arma” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
14. “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” - Denis Diderot
15. “Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.” - Frank Herbert
16. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]” - John F. Kennedy
17. “I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.” - Stephen Fry
18. “You can't cage an eagle for long without destroying it.” - Patricia Briggs
19. “She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.” - Janet Fitch
20. “Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ” - Leo Tolstoy
21. “Der Präventionsstaat muss [...] dem Bürger immer mehr Freiheiten nehmen, um ihm dafür Sicherheit zu geben.” - Heribert Prantl
22. “[I]hr könnt nur frei sein, wenn selbst der Wunsch, die Freiheit zu suchen, euch zum Zügel wird und wenn ihr aufhört, von Freiheit als Ziel und Erfüllung zu reden.” - Khalil Gibran
23. “Frei ist, wer der Vernunft gehorcht.” - John Milton
24. “Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine öffentliche Freiheit.” - Benjamin Franklin
25. “Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary line and adding to one's liberty.” - Henri Frédéric Amiel
26. “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” - Ronald Reagan
27. “Von der Pressefreiheit hängt praktisch jede andere Freiheit ab.” - Salvador de Madariaga
28. “Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.” - Kahlil Gibran
29. “Live simply. Deepest joy is like a flower....beautiful in essence.” - Tony Samara
30. “All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.” - Thomas Pynchon
31. “It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.” - Horace Greeley
32. “I have nothing to do with the partisans. I wish to defy society not in order to improve it, but to hold it at bay no matter what. I suspend my achievements – but also my demands.” - Ernst Jünger
33. “The forest fleer has been expelled from society, the anarch has expelled society from himself. He is and remains his own master in all circumstances. When he decides to flee to the forest, his decision is less an issue of justice and conscience for him than a traffic accident. He changes camouflage; of course, his alien status is more obvious in the forest flight, thereby making it the weaker form, though perhaps indispensable.” - Ernst Jünger
34. “Liberalism is to freedom as anarchism is to anarchy.” - Ernst Jünger
35. “[T]he state should not impose a preferred way of life, but should leave its citizens as free as possible to choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.” - Michael J. Sandel
36. “How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” - Thomas Jefferson
37. “Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)” - Rollo May
38. “I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.” - Scott Westerfeld
39. “If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.” - Ronald Reagan
40. “I never do enjoy my breaks, long or short...I look forward to them intensely, but as soon as they begin, I can feel them starting to end. I feel the temporariness of my freedom, and find it hard to concentrate on anything other than the sensation of it trickling away.” - Sophie Hannah
41. “Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to benefit a few who appropriate to themselves the value of the work of others. This transformation ought to be directed toward a radical change in the foundation of society, that is, the private ownership of the means of production.” - Gustavo Gutierrez
42. “[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.” - Michel de Montaigne
43. “Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.” - Aristotle
44. “While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it.While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” - Eugene Debs
45. “In the modern food landscape, the Krafts, Monsantos, and Archer Daniels Midlands are standing in the way of food democracy.” - Brian Halweil
46. “Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.” - Douglas Pagels
47. “Anon from the castle wallsThe crescent banner falls,And the crowd beholds instead,Like a portent in the sky,Iskander's banner fly,The Black Eagle with double head;And a shout ascends on high,For men's souls are tired of the Turks,And their wicked ways and works,That have made of Ak-HissarA city of the plague;And the loud, exultant cryThat echoes wide and farIs: "Long live Scanderbeg!” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
48. “Flat ubi vult” - Victor Hugo
49. “Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.” - Susan Sontag
50. “America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” - John Quincy Adams
51. “Our expectation in ourselves must be higher than our expectation in others.” - Victor Manuel Rivera
52. “If we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of the earth, but also the earth's ability to produce. We will see that beauty and utility are alike dependent upon the health of the world. But we will also see through the fads and the fashions of protest. We will see that war and oppression and pollution are not separate issues, but are aspects of the same issue. Amid the outcries for the liberation of this group or that, we will know that no person is free except in the freedom of other persons, and that man's only real freedom is to know and faithfully occupy his place - a much humbler place than we have been taught to think - in the order of creation.(pg.89, "Think Little")” - Wendell Berry
53. “Liberal attitudes towards the other are characterized both by respect for otherness, openness to it, and an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the other is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the other. Tolerance thus coincides with its opposite. My duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him or her, not intrude into his space—in short, that I should respect his intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be ‘harassed’, that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others.” - Slavoj Žižek
54. “I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.” - John Marsden
55. “The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.” - Adam Michnik
56. “You can only be free if I am free.” - Clarence Darrow
57. “Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise." (p. 248)” - Simone de Beauvoir
58. “The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none.” - Virginia Woolf
59. “For any human being, freedom is essential, crucial, to our dignity and our ability to be fully human.” - Izzeldin Abuelaish
60. “After all these years, I feel so free. Who knows where I might fly?” - Kim Edwards
61. “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” - Alan Wilson Watts
62. “ كلما ردد جملته المكسورة:"أنا حر.. أنا حر"ردد الببغاء الحبيس في قفص الحديد.. خلف قضبان الشرفة..وهو يضرب وليفته بجناحيه:"أنا حر.. أنا حر"!” - هيام المفلح
63. “Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
64. “Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.” - Aung San Suu Kyi
65. “Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.” - Joseph O'Connor
66. “Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the “real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.” - Dominic Owen Mallary
67. “They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire and you can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it!” - C. JoyBell C.
68. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
69. “Hatred. Something almost as physical as walls, pianos, or nurses. She could almost touch the destructive energy leaking out of her body. She allowed the feeling to emerge, regardless of whether it was good or bad; she was sick of self-control, of masks, of appropriate behavior. Veronika wanted to spend her remaining two or three days of life behaving as inappropriately as she could.” - Paulo Coelho
70. “Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond.” - Jeffrey Borenstein
71. “At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.” - Eric Idle
72. “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.” - Edward M. Kennedy
73. “This concern with the basic condition of freedom — the absence of physical constraint — is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free — to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.” - Aldous Huxley
74. “It is more important to be free than to be happy.” - Tom Robbins
75. “The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Ghandi, quoted in Merton, p. 68” - Thomas Merton
76. “At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.” - Diane Ackerman
77. “It is better to die fighting than to die on your knees.” - Emiliano Zapata
78. “What are the present governments of Europe, but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say, It is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic, at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French Revolution is traduced.” - Thomas Paine
79. “In here I'm the guy who can get things for you... outside all you need is the Yellow Pages. I don't think I could make it.” - Stephen King
80. “Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.” - Louise Erdrich
81. “To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?” - Edward Abbey
82. “It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf, perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do.” - E.A. Bucchianeri
83. “I’m an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation.” - Daniel Radcliffe
84. “The world is not ready for some people when they show up, but that shouldn't stop anyone.” - Ashly Lorenzana
85. “The notion of freedom proclaimed by the modern world is anti-discipline. But true freedom cannot be separated from discipline.” - Matthew Kelly
86. “Pain will leave you, when you let go” - Jeremy Aldana
87. “The securest place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty” - ben franklin
88. “Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” - Victor E. Frankl
89. “Deambular no significa andar sin rumbo, sino andar con todos los rumbos.” - Enrique de Hériz
90. “No one could ever truly be free as long as they loved, and life wasn't worth living without love. So freedom? Overrated.” - Gena Showalter
91. “Free women," said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: "They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.” - Doris Lessing
92. “I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.” - Criss Jami
93. “Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” - C. JoyBell C.
94. “You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.” - Ron Paul
95. “To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.” - Aung San Suu Kyi
96. “Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.” - Will Durant
97. “If you need a reason to get involved in world politics, all you need to do is watch a playground of children for awhile. Imagine a world that happy and free all the time, that vision is the future worth fighting for.” - Laurance Kitts
98. “When we take your person into account, you who are a young maiden, to whom God gives the strength and power to be the champion who casts the rebels down and feeds France with the sweet, nourishing milk of peace, here indeed is something quite extraordinary! For if God performed such a great number of miracles through Joshua who conquered many a place and cast down many an enemy, he, Joshua, was a strong and powerful man. But, after all, a woman – a simple shepherdess – braver than any man ever was in Rome! As far as God is concerned, this was easily accomplished. But as for us, we never heard tell of such an extraordinary marvel, for the prowess of all the great men of the past cannot be compared to this woman's whose concern it is to cast out our enemies. This is God's doing: it is He who guides her and who has given her a heart greater than that of any man.” - Christine de Pizan
99. “There is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist.” - John Fowles
100. “Words of Emancipation didn't arrive until the middle of June so they called it Juneteenth. So that was it, the night of Juneteenth celebration, his mind went on. The celebration of a gaudy illusion.” - Ralph Ellison
101. “There has to be a cut-off somewhere between the freedom of expression and a graphically explicit free-for-all.” - E.A. Bucchianeri
102. “... how terrible is the pain of the mind and heart when the freedom of mankind is suppressed!” - E.A. Bucchianeri
103. “Here is the paradox of the thing we call freedom: the farther we wander from God and the more we try to break free from him, the more enchained we become. Every step we take away from Him leads us farther from the freedom of Jesus and closer to the cruelty of Cain.” - Steven James
104. “Freedom is not the absence of commitment, and to be committed to something or to someone does not mean the loss of freedom. But freedom exists in the realm of the unbound and to be free is to be committed to that which is a part of the unbound realm. Whatever sets your soul to flight is freedom. If someone sets your soul to flight, to stay with that person is not to lose freedom but to stay with that person is to retain freedom. Together you have what is unbound. Whatever will swell your spirit and give you wings, is freedom, and it is a fault if you let go of that for the very reason that you are afraid of losing your freedom and in doing so you have in fact let go of what will keep you unbound.” - C. JoyBell C.
105. “What if good institutions were in fact the product of good intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be rigor and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be realism are making us forget the origins of the greatness we lay claim to - power and wealth as secondary consequences of the progress of freedom, or, as Whitman would prefer, Democracy?” - Marilynne Robinson
106. “To have so little, and it of so little value, was to be quaintly free.” - Wallace Stegner
107. “Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep us safe.” - Anne Lamott
108. “There is no need for us all to be alike and think the same way, neither do we need a common enemy to force us to come together and reach out to each other. If we allow ourselves and everyone else the freedom to fully individuate as spiritual beings in human form, there will be no need for us to be forced by worldly circumstances to take hands and stand together. Our souls will automatically want to flock together, like moths to the flame of our shared Divinity, yet each with wings covered in the glimmering colors and unique patterns of our individual human expression.” - Anthon St. Maarten
109. “A scientist, an artist, a citizen is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction; he can take care of himself, for he is the inventor not only of laws, theories, pictures, plays, forms of music, ways of dealing with his fellow man, institutions but also of entire world views, he is the inventor of entire forms of life.” - Paul Karl Feyerabend
110. “We alone, of the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it.” - Ayn Rand
111. “But I didn't really mind it because I knew that ittakes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know whattrue freedom is.” - Lana Del Rey
112. “Peri went to the window, gesturing out at the dragons, perched and flying, everywhere. "Safe, true, but how boring! How confining! How sad! How could that compare with this? And what is safe? You were not safe on your little farm. War came to you and took all your safety away! If I am to be in this world, I want more than to be a hound upon the game board, tucked away in a corner until the jackals come and sweep all away!” - Mercedes Lackey
113. “We are not supposed to all be the same, feel the same, think the same, and believe the same. The key to continued expansion of our Universe lies in diversity, not in conformity and coercion. Conventionality is the death of creation.” - Anthon St. Maarten
114. “College had once been my greatest aspiration; it stood for everything my mother did not—intellectualism, feminism, freedom. But being kidnapped had given me plenty of time to think, and somewhere between all that fear and dread, I'd realized that was the wrong reason to go to college. That the potential for those things had been inside of me all along, only I'd never realized because I hadn't believed myself strong enough to break free without an intermediary.” - Nenia Campbell
115. “I'd seen entire constellations of possibility I'd never previously been aware of, so blinded had I been by the bright, glaring stars of expectation. Freedom, I was beginning to think, had less to do with where you were, and was more about who you were trying to be.” - Nenia Campbell
116. “Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen in every thing. It was very present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.” - Frederick Douglass
117. “Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, and with freedom, courage , and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.” - W. Somerset Maugham
118. “You are set free whenever you love—even those who believe you're crazy.” - Jef Murray
119. “The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to “enhance” your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your “faith” cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world.” - John Piper
120. “The greatest joy of the oppressed people, is enjoying his freedom while,the greatest misfortune of the oppressors is to suffer for the joy of his people.” - Miguel Ángel Sáez Gutiérrez «Marino»
121. “The very freedom which the sinner supposedly exercises in his self-indulgence is only another proof that he is ruled by the tyrant.” - Fulton J. Sheen
122. “With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.” - Doris Lessing
123. “Niente come tornare in un luogo rimasto immutatoci fa scoprire quanto siamo cambiati...” - Nelson Mandela
124. “I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.” - Anna Funder
125. “If there's to be damnation, she had said, let it be of my choosing, not theirs. He knew a little about damnation himself… and he had an idea that the lessons, far from being done, were just beginning.” - Stephen King
126. “You can't pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it.” - Scott Howard Phillips
127. “People do not belong to others, either. How can the huincas buy and sell people if they do not own them. Sometimes the boy went two or three days without speaking a word, surly, and not eating, and when asked what was the matter, the answer was always the same: "There are content days and there are sad days. Each person is a master of his silence.” - Isabel Allende
128. “If one has never known freedom, it is easy to be blind to the gridirons composing one's cell.” - Nenia Campbell
129. “Msichana wa miaka 18 miaka ya 70 ni sawa na msichana wa miaka 8 leo. Msichana wa miaka 8 leo anayajua maisha kuliko msichana wa miaka 18 miaka ya 70. Tuwape watoto wetu haki yao ya msingi ya kuwa watoto katika siku za ujana wao, kabla hawajawa watoto tena watakapokuwa wakubwa.” - Enock Maregesi
130. “The only thing that feels worse than being stuck in a situation that makes you unhappy is realizing that you are not ready or willing to change whatever it is.” - Ashly Lorenzana
131. “There’s a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.” - Lauren DeStefano
132. “However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords…I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together…and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.” - Cressida Cowell
133. “I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!.. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason.” - Eugene O'Neill
134. “Sholem [a painter] was saying that freedom, for him, is having the technical facility to be able to execute whatever he wants, just whatever image he has in his mind. But that's not freedom! That's control, or power. Whereas I think Margaux understands freedom to be the freedom to take risks, the freedom to do something bad or appear foolish. To not recognize that difference is a pretty big thing. [...] "It's like with improv," Misha said. "True improv is about surprising yourself--but most people won't improvise truthfully. They're afraid. What they do is pull from their bag of tricks. They take what they already know how to do and apply it to the present situation. But that's cheating! And cheating's bad for an artist. It's bad in life--but it's really bad in art." -p.20-1, How Should A Person Be” - Sheila Heti
135. “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.” - Etienne de la Boetie
136. “To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions—there we have none.” - Virginia Woolf
137. “Becoming aware of our inner man and woman means to discover the roots and creative potential of both the male and female aspect within ourselves. Becoming aware of the inner man and woman means to understand that they have different visions of life. It means to understand that they have different perspectives and views of life. The inner man and woman are our two wings of love and freedom. Through awareness, acceptance and understanding, we can allow our two wings to develop in a deep and natural harmony. In the world today, a one-sided development of the male side leads to destructivity. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, exhaustion and a separation from life. A one-sided development of the female side leads to passivity and dependence.” - Swami Dhyan Giten
138. “When we embrace the opposites within ourselves and understand that inner harmony arises when they mature, we find the love, joy, silence and freedom that are hidden in every moment. It is my experience that it is through the inner female side that we find the depth within ourselves – independent of if we are a man or a woman. It is through the female side that we find the inner source of love and truth. It is through the female side that we lit the light of our own consciousness. The more we learn to know the inner man and woman and the more we accept their different visions of life, the more a meeting happens between them that makes us happy and satisfied. Through embracing both these sides in ourselves, we realize that we really lack nothing – but that we already are love. When both the male and female side is capable of living in trust, a love begins to flow between them – a love that was always possible, but not realized. The inner woman is the meditative quality within ourselves. The inner woman is the source of love and truth. The inner woman is the capacity to surrender to life. It is through the inner woman that we are in contact with life. It is the inner woman that is the door to belongingness with the Whole.” - Swami Dhyan Giten
139. “We march on, though sometimes strange moods fill our children. Our march toward security and peace is the march of freedom—the freedom that we should like to become a living part of. It is the dignity of the individual to live in a society of free men, where the spirit of understanding and belief exists; of understanding that all men, whatever their color, race, religion or estate, should be given equal opportunity to serve themselves and each other according to their needs and abilities.But we are not really free unless we use what we produce. So long as the fruit of our labor is denied us, so long will want manifest itself in a world of slaves.It is only when we have plenty to eat—plenty of everything— that we begin to understand what freedom means. To us, freedom is not an intangible thing. When we have enough to eat, then we are healthy enough to enjoy what we eat. Then we have the time and ability to read and think and discuss things. Then we are not merely living but also becoming a creative part of life. It is only then that we become a growing part of democracy.” - Carlos Bulosan
140. “Freedom ain't running but chasing what you want...” - A.Mim
141. “Of course. That's what people do in a disordered world, a world of freedom and choice: they leave when they want. They disappear, they come back, they leave again. And you are left to pick up the pieces on your own.” - Lauren Oliver
142. “I know the consequences, Manon,” Ilyse conceded. “I know the fate you endured might one day be my own. But I refuse to be a prisoner for the rest of my life.” - Melika Dannese Lux
143. “I start to follow her, and Alex grabs my hand."I'll find you," he says, watching me with the eyes I remember. "I won't let you go again."I don't trust myself to speak. Instead I nod, hoping that he understands me. He squeezes my hand."Go," he says.” - Lauren Oliver
144. “Anarchism has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, "Freedom." Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully." — Lucy Parsons” - Lucy Parsons
145. “Nothing is more beautiful than freedom, and nothing more grotesque than its molestation.” - Bryant McGill
