Quotes about freedom

The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.

Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death.

It wasn't so bad being a slave when your owner was yourself and stood up for you.

He had left home to get away, not to go toward anything. There was no greater freedom than that.

Was it worth it? To lose part of who he had been in order to live free? Perhaps this new self was better than the old.

In a way, he lost some of himself, some of his knack, and therefore some of the choices he might have had in life. But in losing those, he gained so much more freedom, so much more power, that he was clear winner in the bargain.

I'll be dead and you'll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!

What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because [they] force us or because we're afraid they might force us?

I will not be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied - I am willing only to be convinced. If you don't trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you're trying to do... Then you're confessing your own moral weakness and I'll never serve you.

Having never been in control of his own life, his idea of freedom was simply to break free.

Every artist knows that there is no such thing as "freedom" in art. The first thing an artist does when he begins a new work is to lay down the barriers and limitations; he decides upon a certain composition, a certain key, a certain relation of creatures or objects to each other. He is never free, and the more splendid his imagination, the more intense his feeling, the farther he goes from general truth and general emotion.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.