Freedom Quotes
Presidents are over-represented here. George W. Bush has the most entries, ahead of Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy, which says more about how often presidents talk about freedom than about how well they put it. The better writing tends to be elsewhere: Madison in the Federalist Papers (1787), Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition (1958), Dalí in his diary.
Two of the most repeated freedom quotes are flagged. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is credited to Voltaire. Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote it in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), as a summary of his views. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is credited to Jefferson, but nobody has found it in his writings. The closest early version is by John Philpot Curran, in a speech of 1790.
We have a solution for war. It is to expand the sphere of liberty.
I do play better when I have a sense of freedom on the pitch. Any time I’ve got that, I’m happy.
We want liberty, justice and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.
MIT is governed by a second, even higher rule: the inalienable right of academic freedom.
I think you will have to be very, very careful to have the regulations that will protect freedom.