Quotes about freedom

Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress. It is an added good fortune to have parents who take a personal part in the great movements of their time. I am glad and thankful that this was my case. (Ch 1)

"You are your own law, so you'll be your own judge."

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

The human race is but a monotonous affair. Most of them labor the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it.

Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

First of all, there is the suspensive freedom that comes by walking, even a simple short stroll: throwing of the burden of cares, forgetting business for a time. You choose to leave the once behind, go out, stroll around, think about other things. With a longer excursion of several days, the process of self-liberation is accentuated: you escape the constraints of work, throw of the yoke of routine.

During long cross-country wanders, you do glimpse that freedom of pure renunciation. When you walk for a long time, there comes a moment when you no longer know how many hours have passed, or how many more will be needed to get there; you feel on your shoulders the weight of the bare necessities, you tell yourself that’s quite enough – that really nothing more is needed to keep body and soul together – and you feel you could carry on like this for days, for centuries. You can hardly remember where you are going or why; that is as meaningless as your history, or what the time is. And you feel free, because whenever you remember the former signs of your commitments in hell – name, age, profession, CV – it all seems absolutely derisory, minuscule, insubstantial.

Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come.

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

Translation: It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.

Having money is a way of being free of money.

It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty.