"Much violence is based
on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared."
-- Henri Nouwen
|
*
Today
we are engaged in a deadly global struggle with those who would intimidate, torture,
and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this
struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed
in a true direction. -- Barack
Obama |
Here
is my advice as we begin the century that will lead to 2081. First, guard the
freedom of ideas at all costs. Be alert that dictators have always played on the
natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don't regard yourself
as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people
you disagree with to free, public, unhampered expression.
-- Gerard K. O'Neill,
2081
There can
be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of
God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have
it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.
-- James
Otis
|
He that would make his own
liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates
this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. -- Thomas
Paine *
When
people fear the government, there is tyranny. When government fears the people,
there is liberty. -- Thomas
Paine |
|
*
"I
would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality
and justice and prosperity for all people."
-- Rosa Parks
|
Anarchism has but
one infallible, unchangeable motto, "Freedom." Freedom to discover any truth,
freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully. -- Lucy
Parsons, 1905 | |
Let us not accept
violence as the way of peace. Let us instead begin by respecting true freedom:
the resulting peace will be able to satisfy the world's expectations, for it will
be a peace built on justice, a peace founded on the incomparable dignity of the
free human being.
-- Pope John Paul II
There
is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve
just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty.
-- Ron Paul
America
was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great
as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist
the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own
government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.
-- Ron Paul
Only
in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for
excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness...
The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals.
When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is
freedom that is the source of all creative energy.
-- Ron Paul
|
*
"There
can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom." -- William
Penn |
*
Freedom
is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted. -- A.
Philip Randolph | |
There is no power
in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are
joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood.
-- Walter Reuther
*
"The
artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.
-- Paul Robeson | |
| *
"At
all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom
of speech, and freedom from want… for these are things that must be gained in
peace as well as in war." -- Eleanor
Roosevelt |
*
Freedom
means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who
struggle to gain those rights or keep them. --
Franklin D.
Roosevelt |
|
In the future days
which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in
the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--
everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into
world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a
healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world. The fourth
is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction
of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will
be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor
--anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite
basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
The
only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect
the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed
to maintain its sovereign control over the government.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
|
*
Order
without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. -- Theodore
Roosevelt |
Freedom
is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom
is about what you can unleash.
-- Harriet Rubin
If
you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full
measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
-- Carl Schurz
*
Sometimes
the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty --
Amartya Sen | |
Sometimes the lack
of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people
of the freedom to satisfy hunger; or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain
remedies for treatable illnesses or the opportunity to be adequatley clothed or
sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities. In other cases, the
unfreedom links closely to the lack of public facilities and social care, such
as the absence of epidemiological programs, or of organized arrangements for the
health care or educational facilities, or of effective insititutions for the maintenance
of local peace and order. In still other cases, the violation of freedom results
directly from a denial of political and civil liberties by authoritarian regimes
and from imposed restrictions on the freedom to participate in the social, political
and economic life of the community.
-- Amartya
Sen
Liberty
is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake,... of searching and experimenting,...
of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophical, religious,
social, and even political.
-- Ignazio Silone
Every
man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free
to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital
into competition with those of any other man or order of men.
-- Adam Smith
|
My definition of a free
society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai
Stevenson |