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.
You can take everything from me except the freedom to look up at the sky occasionally.
Surely there is not a Muslim in the world who does not aspire to freedom in principle.
The statue of Freedom has not been cast yet, the furnace is hot, we can all still burn our fingers.
For this reason, whoever desires liberty, should understand these vital facts, viz.
Freedom is heaviest when you finally have nothing left to lose.
To choose evil is to choose freedom—“freedom, emancipation from all restraint.”
Risk-savvy citizens are indispensable pillars of a society that is ready for positive liberty.
Liberty, as such, is only the negative of duty, the absence of restraint or compulsion.