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.
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
Greeks, God has signed our Liberty and will not go back on his promise.
Education is training in wisdom and virtue, and the exercise of these is freedom.
Initiative means freedom to act, but it does not mean freedom to act in an offhand or casual manner.
Ukraine is not Russia. Too many Ukrainians have tasted too much freedom for too long.
There’s nothing like a little slavery to make a man appreciate even a modest portion of freedom.
Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.
When you are fighting for freedom and your soul, what won’t you do?