“Only very slowly and late have men come to realize that unless freedom is universal it is only extended privilege.”
“We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”
“You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”
“The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.”
“Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.”
“Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.”
“Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.”
“Governing sense, mind and intellect, intent on liberation, free from desire, fear and anger, the sage is forever free.”
“In the light of his vision he has found his freedom: his thoughts are peace, his words are peace and his work is peace.”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
“To be what no one ever was, to be what everyone has been: Freedom is the mean of those extremes that fence all effort in.”
“You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's freedom. You can be free only if I am free.”
“The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave. His fetters fall... freedom and slavery are mental states.”
“Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.”
“Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.”
“There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.”
“None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.”
“When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”
“Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.”
“How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold.”
“Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners.”
“The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.”
“For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.”
“No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.”
“When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?”
“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”
“It will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven.”
“Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”
“A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.”