Great Throughts Treasury

"Responsibility implies freedom, and man, who is in bondage to environment, to social ties, to inner disposition, may yet enjoy freedom before God." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Man is in process of becoming the perfected being whom God is seeking to create. However, this is not taking place – it is important to add – by a natural and inevitable evolution, but through a hazardous adventure in individual freedom." - John Hick, fully John Harwood Hick

"The process of evolution can only be described as the gradual insertion of more and more freedom into matter." - T. E. Hulme, fully Thomas Ernest Hulme

"The enemies of Freedom do not argue; they shout and they shout." - William Ralph Inge

"Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order." -

"Intellectual freedom means the right to re-examine much that has been long taken for granted. A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare to doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert." -

"It takes courage to experience the freedom that comes with autonomy, courage to accept intimacy and directly encounter other persons, courage to take a stand in an unpopular cause, courage to choose authenticity over approval and to choose it again and again, courage to accept the responsibility for your own choices, and, indeed, courage to be the unique person you really are." - Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

"Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once for all, but is a process; he is not merely an extant life, but is, within that life, endowed with possibilities through the freedom he possesses to make of himself what he will by the activities on which he decides." - Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers

"On liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." - Thomas Jefferson

"There’s no absolute freedom anywhere in the world. Freedom is always relative." - Zhang Jie

"All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Without freedom there can be no morality." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." -

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." -

"One day we shall win freedom, but not for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We should never forget that everything Hitler did in German was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic leveling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession, and liberty is erased." - Russell Kirk

"Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose." - Kris Kristofferson

"Christianity teaches that the human soul is directly related to God. Such immediacy is the hallmark of the Divinity of the soul and the center of our freedom." -

"Poetry is an impassioned testament to man’s inner freedom." - Shiv Kumar, now Shiv Kumar Batalvi

"For governing a country well thee is nothing better than moderation. The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way. Nothing is impossible for him. Because he has let go, he can care for the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her child." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Out of the best and most productive years of each person's life, they should carve a segment in which they put their private career aside to serve their community and their country, and thereby serve their children, their neighbours, their fellow men, and the cause of freedom." - David Eli Lilienthal, "Mr. TVA"

"We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that his nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - Abraham Lincoln

"He only has known the full joy of living who somewhere and at some time has struck a decisive blow for the freedom of the human spirit." -

"Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it belongs." -

"While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes the right important." -

"After you get your freedom, your enemy will respect you." -

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it." -

"You can’t separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom." -

"The dagger plunged in the name of Freedom is plunged into the breast of Freedom." - José Martí, fully José Julián Martí Pérez

"Morality cannot exist one minute without freedom… Only a free man can possibly be moral. Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance." - Everett Dean Martin

"Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much that he feels himself thereby appointed his brother’s keeper." - Everett Dean Martin

"We consider progress as legitimate only when it reinforces, rather than undermines, freedom and democracy." - Eduardo Frei Montalva

"Acceptance of death is acceptance of freedom – freedom to live each day with clarity and courage… If we know we are going to die, all danger disappears. There is less fear about what can go wrong, because the worst that can possibly go wrong – our own death – is completely assured. All there is left to do is live, and live well." - Wayne Muller

"Freedom is not choosing; that is merely the move that we make when all is already lost. Freedom is knowing and understanding and respecting things quite other than ourselves." - Iris Murdoch, aka Dame Jean Iris Murdoch

"The Protestantism which stems from Luther has continued to concentrate its energies upon maintaining the freedom of the Word and has been inclined to yield to political and economic forces in what seem to be purely temporal matters." - Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr

"How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Simply to be a human being is to be a futurist of sorts. For human freedom is largely a matter of imaging alternative futures and then choosing among them." - James Ogilvy

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -

"The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order." - Prince Metternich, fully Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich

"To regain the freedom of our Will, we must become consciously aware of what we have been subconsciously choosing. Then we can choose anew." - Henry Reed

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." - Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

"Economic freedom cannot exist without political freedom." - William Safire, fully William Lewis Safire

"Generosity’s aim is twofold: we give freely to others, and we give freely to ourselves. Without both aspects, the experience is incomplete. If we give a gift freely, without attachment to a certain result or expectation of what will come back to us, that exchange celebrates freedom both within ourselves as the giver and the receiver… In a moment of pure giving, we really become one." - Sharon Salzberg

"Meaning in life is determined by how we choose to experience the world, not by how the world experiences us. We are all born with the freedom to put whatever meaning we’d like into our lives." - David Andrew Seaman

"Freedom does not mean that right to do whatever we please, but rather to do whatever we ought... The right to do whatever we please reduces freedom to a physical power and forgets that freedom is a moral power." - Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

"Christian freedom is neither the lonely rebellion of an atheistic existentialist nor the self-will of the rugged individualist. It is freedom-in-community." - Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn

"Freedom and Liberty are not synonyms. Freedom is an essence; Liberty, an accident. Freedom is born with a man; Liberty may be conferred upon him… Freedom is the gift of God; Liberty, the creature of society. Liberty may be taken away from a man; but on whatsoever soul Freedom may light, the course of that soul is henceforth onward and upward." - James McCune Smith