- All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. ~ Albert Einstein
- Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose. ~ C. Wright Mills
- When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. ~ Dorothy Thompson
- Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare. ~ Dorothy Thompson
- The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. ~ Eleanor Holmes Norton
- We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. ~ Epictetus
- Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V. Debs
- Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing 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
- And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~ Marianne Williamson
- 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
BONUS
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. ~ Voltaire
BONUS BONUS
Everything can be taken from a man but ... the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. ~ Victor Frankl
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