More on Freedom
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.
You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.
Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010)
Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.
This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.
To evolve we must be free, and we cannot have freedom if we are not rebels, because no tyrant whatsoever has respected passive people.
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