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.
America has meant so much to so many because we are the best hope of freedom on earth.
A personal creative vision cannot bloom without the freedom afforded by that trust.
How the earth sings as it spins!/Sings the lightness of its flight,/its freedom, its grace, its joy.
I believe in sex education and freedom though. It’s needed in Africa.
I don't like the spirit of socialism – I think freedom is the basis of everything.
But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved through Liberty.
To roam
Giddily and be everywhere, but at home,
Such freedom doth a banishment become.
For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.
He takes the strangest liberties —
But never takes his leave!