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.
True freedom is tolerant. It gives people the right to live and think in new ways.
Fickle folk. A little hunger and stress and they forgot all about liberty.
the intoxicating drug of speed, and freedom to roam the earth.
We guard them. We punish them if we recover them. We chain them. And still they seek their freedom.
To any nation that stands for human liberties, they have an Ally in the United States.