Freedom Quotes

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech, September 22, 1936

Those who enjoy such freedoms as we enjoy, forget in time that men died to earn them.

Franklin Roosevelt

I express many absurd opinions, but I am not the first man to do it American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense.

Edgar Watson Howe

All we have of freedom - - All we use or know - - This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

Rudyard Kipling

When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.

Walter Lippmann

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.

Friedrich August von Hayek

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

Erich Fromm

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Mahatma Gandhi

I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again.

George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 20, 2004

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

John Adams

There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity.

Chester Bowles

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

Albert Einstein

Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

Abraham Lincoln

I believe that freedom is the deepest need of every human soul.

George W. Bush, Press Conference, White House, Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight They never mention that part to us, do they.

George Carlin

I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them though life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

Bertrand Russell, "Why I am Not a Christian".

The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.

George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline and find your liberty.

Frank Herbert, Dune

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

James Madison

The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

Cicero

They do not leave home without American Express. ... Blame the moral carelessness that parents pass off as the gift of freedom as they cut their children loose like colorful kites and wish them an exciting flight.

Roger Rosenblatt

Without freedom, no art art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

Albert Camus

A society like ours, which professes no one religion and has allowed all religions to decay, which indulges freedom to the point of license and individualism to the point of anarchy, needs all the support that responsible, cultivated homes can furnish. I hope your generation will provide a firmer shelter for civilized standards.

Alan Simpson

After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement.

Norman Thomas

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

James A. Garfield, July 12, 1880

The freedom fighters of Nicaragua... are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance.

Ronald Reagan

The case for trade is not just monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy.

George W. Bush, speech, November 19, 1999

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.

Lenin, "State and Revolution", 1919

There is nothing more wonderful than freedom of speech.

Ilya Ehrenburg

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ... The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.

Frank Herbert, Dune

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

Benjamin Cardozo

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Thomas Jefferson

History suggests that Capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom.

Milton Friedman

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Bob Dylan

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - - Ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.

George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004