Freedom Quotes

"One should as a rule respect public opinion... but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to prevent one's children from being turned out of school; but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"Freedom of thought is best preserved when the government is weakest."

"To choose to do something is to create yourself as a person; the act is thus fundamentally distinct from an act of obedience."

"Fear of public opinion is the parent of all tyranny."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that very existence of that world is a problem for you."

"Freedom is the absence of masters."

"To be free is to be terrified."

"Freedom is the burden of creating your own essence."

"Every person has a unique way; none can be prescribed for another."

"Freedom and destiny are welded together."

"The tragedy of the human condition is that we are born to be free and everywhere we are in chains."

"Responsibility is my freedom as the freedom to respond."

"Freedom is not autonomy but the ability to respond to the other."

"Freedom is the burden of choosing our own becoming."

"Freedom exists within constraints."

"Rights are always contested."

"Freedom is the burden of having no predetermined essence."

"The connection is real and binding, and at the same time the distance is preserved."

"Freedom is not the absence of relation but the quality of relation."

"Sovereignty is not the exercise of power, but the refusal of its constraints."

"Laughter breaks the chains that reason has forged around our minds."

"The intellectual who refuses transgression remains forever enslaved."

"Prison has taught me that man can be free even in chains."

"The state is never stronger than when it embodies the will of the people."

"Freedom is the capacity to act according to one's will."

"Freedom is not merely the absence of chains, but the presence of authentic choice."

"Freedom is realized through meaningful participation in collective life."

"We are in a time of profound ethical crisis disguised as freedom."

"To be free is to be able to say 'no' to the violence of totality."