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FREEDOM
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Freedom
is the most basic of all human rights, and yet throughout
history many individuals and nations have had to
struggle to be free. Much progress has been made
in helping to win freedom for all. But even though
all nations agreed to uphold the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights for their citizens, many people
are not allowed these basic liberties.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
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*
The
more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility
we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.
--
Oscar
Arias Sanchez
Hope
is the strongest driving force for a people. Hope
which brings about change, which produces new realities,
is what opens man's road to freedom. Once hope has
taken hold, courage must unite with wisdom. That
is the only way of avoiding violence, the only way
of maintaining the calm one needs to respond peacefully
to offenses.
-- Oscar
Arias Sanchez
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*
"Liberty
and equality...will be best attained when all persons
alike share in the government to the utmost"
-- Aristotle
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*
We
could eradicate slavery. The laws are in place.
The multi-nationals, the world trade organizations,
the United Nations, they could end slavery, but
they're not going to do it until and unless we demand
it.
-- Kevin
Bales
the
4th right in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights is that there can be no slavery. Virtually
every human being agrees that it is a moral wrong.
Those key battles are won by people who went before
us, who had the really tough job. Our job is simply
to make sure that countries enforce their own laws
and that slaves, when freed, have an opportunity
for rehabilitation, reintegration, education, and
so forth
-- Kevin
Bales
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*
"Anti-democracy...is
a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody
to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant,
and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy
and freedom."
-- Harry
Belafonte
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*
None
who have always been free can understand the terrible
fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those
who are not free.
-- Pearl
S. Buck
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*
“We
are asking people to understand that slavery still
exists today; in fact, according to a recent New
York Times article, if you count the number of women
and children in bonded labor, domestic slavery or
sexual slavery today, there are more slaves in the
world than at any other time in history.”
-- Charlotte
Bunch
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*
The
well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world
can never be served until peace - as well as freedom,
honor and self-respect - is secure.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche |
The
people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
-- Edmund Burke
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*
"Everyone
has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal
freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity
to lead a productive life..."
-- Jimmy
Carter |
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*
There
are two kinds of restrictions upon human liberty
-- the restraint of law and that of custom. No written
law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom
supported by public opinion.
-- Carrie
Chapman Catt
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In
this possibly terminal phase of human existence,
democracy and freedom are more than just ideals
to be valued - they may be essential to survival.
-- Noam
Chomsky
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The
progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance
of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of
education, than upon the labours of cabinets and foreign
offices.
-- Richard Cobden
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“In
a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate
power but carries the ultimate responsibility.”
-- Norman
Cousins |
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*
"Peace
can only last where human rights are respected,
where the people are fed, and where individuals
and nations are free."
-- 14th
Dalai Lama
Brute
force, no matter how strongly applied, can never
subdue the basic human desire for freedom.
-- Dalai
Lama
*
Human
Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right
to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom.--
14th
Dalai Lama
|
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You
can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting
the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am
free.
-- Clarence Darrow
*
it
is necessary to stay on the march, to be on the journey,
to work for peace wherever we are at all times, because
the liberty we cherish, which we would share with
the world, demands eternal vigilance. And democracy
is no easy path, but those of us who believe in it
must be prepared to sacrifice in its cause more willingly
than those who are prepared to die in the wars of
aggression. We, too, must be dedicated to the cause
of freedom.
-- Ossie
Davis |
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*
“I
am an American. I love my country and have great
hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak
candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have
benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in
my country and for this I am eternally grateful.”
-- Johnny
Depp
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“The
only weapon I have is my microphone and my unshakable
faith as a militant for change, veritable change.”
-- Jean
Dominique
You
cannot kill the truth. You cannot kill justice.
You cannot kill what we are fighting for.
-- Jean
Dominique
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Those
who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing
up the ground. They want rain without thunder and
lightning; they want the ocean without the roar
of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral
one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both.
But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing
without a demand; it never has and it never will.
-- Frederick
Douglass, 1857
*
Liberty
is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts
and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights,
is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they
first of all strike down.
-- Frederick
Douglass
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“The
cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”
-- W.
E. B. DuBois
*
There
is in this world no such force as the force of a
person determined to rise. The human soul cannot
be permanently chained.
-- W.
E. B. DuBois
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“I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love.”
-- W. E. B. Du Bois
 |
*
A hero is someone who understands the responsibility
that comes with his freedom.
-- Bob
Dylan
*
"How
many years can some people exist
before
they're allowed to be free..."
-- Bob
Dylan
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*
Freedom
has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit
of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed
- else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots,
it will wither and die.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower |
Only
the educated are free.
-- Epictetus
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*
The
fight for freedom is combined with the fight for
equality, and we must realize that this is the fight
for America - not just black America but all America.
-- James
Farmer
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We
must be free not because we claim freedom, but because
we practice it.
-- William Faulkner
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*
They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin
Franklin
"A
nation of well informed men who have been taught
to know and prize the rights which God has given
them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of
ignorance that tyranny begins."
-- Benjamin
Franklin
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*
Enslave
the liberty of but one human being and the liberties
of the world are put in peril"
-- William
Lloyd Garrison
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*
Promoting
active liberty does not mean allowing the majority
to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking
special care that all groups have a chance to fully
participate in society and the political process.
-- Ruth
Bader Ginsburg |
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*
Freedom
means to build a democratic system enshrined with
the respect for fundamental rights of Man, of the
human being, of the individuals.
-- Xanana
Gusmão
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Liberty
lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there,
no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution,
no law, no court can even do much to help it.
-- Judge Learned Hand
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*
Without
free, self-respecting and autonomous citizens there
can be no free and independent nations. Without internal
peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the
citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee
of external peace.
-- Vaclav
Havel |
The
fact, in short, is that freedom, to be meaningful in an
organized society must consist of an amalgam of hierarchy
of freedoms and restraints.
-- Samuel Hendel
“We
need to be activating deep democracy because democracy
is fleeting through our fingers, and most people are unaware
of it. Democracy is about dispersing power among the interconnected
people. As a people, we need to rise to the level of forcing
our leaders to abide by our stated principles - really
exercise democracy, not only on our behalf but on behalf
of the world. We need to continue, as part and parcel
of the American experience created by the founding forefathers,
and now the foremothers, to insist, "We want democracy
to work, and that means every voice counts."
-- Dr. Azizah al-Hibri
We
can enhance democracy by making it in line with its
original vision. Read the dollar bill - E pluribus
unum, out of many, one; novus ordo seclorum, a new
order of the ages. That's democracy.
-- Barbara
Marx Hubbard |
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our
land is now, more than ever before, the last best
hope on earth. I know that we can--I know that
we shall--begin here the fuller and richer realization
of that hope--that promise of a land where all
men are truly free and equal, and each man uses
his freedom and equality wisely and well
-- Hubert
Humphrey
*
Yes,
a new day is here. Across America -- throughout
the entire world -- the forces of emancipation
are at work. We hear freedom's rising chorus:
“Let me live my own life. Let me live in peace.
Let me be free," say the people.
-- Hubert
Humphrey
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*
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences
attending too much liberty than to those attending
too small a degree of it.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
*
We
hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
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*
The
enlargement of liberty for individual human beings
must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any
western society.
-- Robert
F. Kennedy |
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*
"Struggle
is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really
won -- you earn it and win it in every generation."
-- Coretta
Scott King
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*
When
we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every
village and every hamlet, from every state and every
city, we will be able to speed up that day when
all of God's children, black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will
be able to join hands and sing in the words of the
old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
“If
the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the
opposition we now face will surely fail. Because
the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned
tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's
destiny.”
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
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*
freedom
rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak
freely.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
the
light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long
as it is inside of us.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
freedom
stirs the human heart and fear stills it.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
That
is the America which stands not in pursuit of an
axis of evil, but which is itself at the axis of
hope and faith and peace and freedom.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
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*
"Please
use your freedom to promote ours."
-- Aung
San Suu Kyi
The
people of my country want the two freedoms that
spell security: freedom from want and freedom from
fear.
-- Aung
San Suu Kyi
|
Freedom
is not a state; it is an act... Freedom is the continuous
action we all must take, and each generation must do its
part to create an even more fair, more just society.”
-- John R. Lewis
“I
appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution
that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets
of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation
until true freedom comes...” -- John R. Lewis
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*
Those
who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
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*
“The
end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to
preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states
of created beings capable of law, where there is
no law, there is no freedom.”
-- John
Locke
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Real
freedom is creative, proactive, and will take me
into new territories. I am not free if my freedom
is predicated on reacting to my past.
--
Kenny
Loggins
*
Running
away will never make you free.
-- Kenny
Loggins
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Freedom
is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself
the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of
choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but
a member, an instrument, a thing.
-- Archibald MacLeish
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*
"I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you
believe in, and going after your dreams."
--
Madonna
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You
cannot separate peace from freedom because no one can
be at peace unless he has his freedom.
--Malcolm X
What
our country deserves from everyone who enjoys its fruits
and freedoms is a little more gratitude – and a lot less
greed.
- - Michelle Malkin
 |
*
“Emancipate
yourselves
from mental slavery.
None but ourselves
can free our minds.
Won't you help to sing
The songs of freedom?”
-- Bob
Marley
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*
“Today's
Constitution is a realistic document of freedom
only because of several corrective amendments. Those
amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness
that I and other Blacks cherish.”
-- Thurgood
Marshall
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*
All
men are by nature born equally free and independent.
-- George
Mason
|
Whatever
the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety
arising from political suppression are always greater
than the dangers to the safety resulting from political
freedom. Suppression is always foolish.
-- Neil A. McDonald
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*
Freedom
is for everyone, whatever lifestyle they choose,
as long as it's peaceful and honest
-- Russell
Means
I
find freedom to be the most important issue facing
any human being today, because without freedom,
then life is pointless. The more dependent you become
on centralized power, the more easily you are lead
around.
-- Russell
Means
|
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Being
an Indian means living with the land. And the only way
we'll be able to do that is to gain our freedom.
-- Russell
Means
The
only way you can be free is to know is that you are worthwhile
as a distinct human being.
-- Russell
Means
You
can't talk about the environment, you can't talk about
political correctness, affirmative action and all the
other innumerable things that freedom is about, unless
you have a free society based upon the integrity of the
individual. If you have a responsible society, these other
issues will not come up in a responsible society, and
that is what freedom is all about.
-- Russell
Means
There
never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till
I have conquered in myself what causes war.
-- Marianne Moore
|
*
We
cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at
home.
-- Edward
R. Murrow
"If
we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny
the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular,
eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence
of racial equality then hundreds of millions in
Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new
allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to
defend a myth and our present privileged status.
Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the
individual in this country costs us the. . . confidence
of men and women who aspire to that freedom and
independence of which we speak and for which our
ancestors fought."
-- Edward
R. Murrow
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"Much
violence is based on the illusion that life is a property
to be defended and not to be shared."
-- Henri Nouwen
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*
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
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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
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*
"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
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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
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*
"There
can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom."
-- William
Penn
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*
Freedom
is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given;
it is exacted.
-- A.
Philip Randolph
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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
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*
"The
artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.
-- Paul
Robeson
|
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*
"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
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*
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
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*
Sometimes
the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly
to economic poverty
-- Amartya
Sen
|
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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
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My
definition of a free society is a society where
it is safe to be unpopular.
-- Adlai
Stevenson
|
If
we lose our title of "land of the free," what have we
got?
-- Helen Thomas
 |
*
The
essence of all slavery consists in taking the product
of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether
this force be founded upon ownership of the slave
or ownership of the money that he must get to live.
-- Leo
Tolstoy |
|
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*
"If
you are tired, keep going; if you are scared, keep
going; if you are hungry; keep going; if you want
to taste freedom, keep going."
-- Harriet
Tubman
|
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*
"We
must not allow ourselves to become like the system
we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which
we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say,
'...we shouldn't have done that.' We must remember,
my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause.
The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those
who will walk with heads held high. We will say, 'We
used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of
history.'
-- Archbishop
Desmond Tutu |
In
America, through pressure of conformity, there
is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
-- Peter
Ustinov
|
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*
Democracy
is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom,
right by right, until it reaches its snapping point.
-- Abdoulaye
Wade |
 |
|
"For
in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle;
and one faces down fears of today so that those
of tomorrow might be engaged.
~Alice
Walker
|
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*
The
shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from
every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary,
the potent Law of Laws.
-- Walt
Whitman
|
*
There
is much to be done, there is much that can be done…
one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference
of life and death. As long as one dissident is in
prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one
child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish
and shame. What all these victims need above all is
to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting
them, that when their voices are stifled we shall
lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on
ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
-- Elie
Wiesel |
 |
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*
Freedom
is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it,
and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend
it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether
they agree with us or not, no matter what their
race or the color of their skin.
-- Wendell
Wilkie
Whenever
we take away the liberties of those whom we hate
we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those
we love.
-- Wendell
Wilkie
When
we talk of freedom and opportunity for all nations,
the mocking paradoxes in our own society become
so clear they can no longer be ignored.
-- Wendell
Wilkie
|
*
A
free America... means just this: individual freedom
for all, rich or poor, or else this system of
government we call democracy is only an expedient
to enslave man to the machine and make him like
it.
-- Frank
Lloyd Wright
|
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True
independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's
right.
-- Brigham Young
End
Slavery Quotes
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