When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.
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.
The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss.
Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum.
A man may publish anything which twelve of his countrymen think not blamable.
Liberty (or freedom) is the absence of coercion by other human beings.
The Judge is intrusted with the liberties of the people, and his saying is the Law.