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.
There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.
Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.
Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.
A man who learns to read and write is half-way to freedom by that one fact.
The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening.
Freedom is more often lost by false assumptions than by the power of one's enemies.
For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.