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.
Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides.
While we shall negotiate freely, we shall not negotiate freedom.
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but having the right to do what we ought.
I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.
True liberty can exist only when justice is equally administered to all.