quotes, quotations and passages on freedom

Freedom of will is the ability to do
gladly that which I must do.

Carl Jung

If some great Power would agree to make me think always what is true and do what is right on condition of being turned into a sort of clock, I would instantly close with the bargain. The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with. Thomas Henry Huxley

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. Rollo May The Courage to Create

I fear nothing. I hope for nothing. I am free. Nikos Kazantzakis Freedom means choosing your burden. Hephzibah Menuhin

Freedom is as frightening now as it was thousands of years ago. It will always require a willingness to sacrifice what is most familiar for what is most true. To be free we may need to act from integrity, on trust, sometimes for a very long time. Few of us will reach our promised land in a day. But perhaps the most important part of the story is that God does not delegate this task. Whenever anyone moves toward freedom, God Himself is there. Rachel Naomi Remen

A superficial freedom to wander aimlessly here or there, to taste this
or that, to make a choice of distractions, is simply a sham. It claims
to be a freedom of "choice" when it has evaded the basic task
of discovering who it is that chooses.

Thomas Merton

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No person is free until he or she is free at the center. When we let go
there, we are free indeed. When the self is renounced, then
one stands utterly disillusioned, apart, asking for nothing. If anything
comes to us, it is all sheer gain. Then life becomes one constant surprise.

E. Stanley Jones

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward
circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrents of events,
which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which bends
events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring,
from immutable principles which it has deliberately espoused.

W.E. Channing

One who has mastered him- or herself is truly free.
Freedom lies in the heart of the sage, servitude
in the heart of the fool.

Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhism Day by Day

The price of freedom is responsibility, but it is a bargain, because freedom is priceless.

Hugh Downs

People are freest when they are most
unconscious of freedom.

David H. Lawrence

Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive, and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.

Peace Pilgrim

You are already free. You only have to know and realize this truth.

Sivananda

Freedom breeds freedom. Nothing else does.

Anne Roe

freedom 2

Freedom does not mean the right to do whatever we please,
but rather to do as we ought. The right to do whatever we
please reduces freedom to a physical power and
forgets that freedom is a moral power.

Fulton J. Sheen

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as
a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact
rather than as an ultimate goal. It is the beginning of wisdom
to be amazed at the fact of our being free.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not
wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in
the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the
voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.

Pope John Paul III

Articles and book excerpts on freedom:

Freedom      Joe Mazzella
I Have a Dream (excerpt)      Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let Freedom Ring!      Kathy Paauw

If we come to understand that freedom is inescapable, that understanding
can serve us greatly in living a happy and productive life. In the middle
of one of the most restrictive environments imaginable, Viktor Frankl
discovered this truth about freedom. He learned that no matter where
life might take him, no matter how terrible the external conditions might
be, he still had the freedom of his own thoughts and attitudes. He could
choose to see with the eyes of a free spirit.
We may often give this inalienable freedom away by believing that our
parents, teachers, friends, employers, or whoever cause us to feel a certain
way. However, when we truly understand that no one can make us think or
feel anything unless we give them permission, we begin to understand the
vastness of our freedom. No person or circumstance has
the power to change that truth.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone.
There were many others who felt the same way.

Rosa Parks

Freedom is not simply the circumstances that allow you to do whatever you want.
Freedom is not only the opportunity to choose. Freedom is the strength of
character to choose and to do what is right. With that in mind, our age is not an
age of freedom, but an age of slavery. It is subtle, but it is real. The foundation
of freedom is not power or choice. Freedom is upheld not by men and women
in government, but by people who govern themselves.

Matthew Kelly

Stanzas on Freedom

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think:
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

James Russell Lowell

I know I was being prepared for the pilgrimage when I made certain
choices. For instance, I was in grammar school when I was offered
cigarettes from a package, which I did not smoke but my friends did.
In high school I was offered all kinds of alcohol, which I did not drink
but my friends did. Then just after my student days I was faced with
a kind of test because all my friends at that time used both alcohol
and tobacco. There was such a push towards conformity in those days--
they call it peer pressure now -- that they actually looked down on me
because I didn't do these things. And gathered in someone's living
room I said to them, "Look, life is a series of choices and nobody can
stop you from making your choices, but I have a right to make
my own choices, too. And I have chosen freedom."

Peace Pilgrim

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny
to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!

Charles Dickens
Bleak House

Without total freedom, every perception, every objective regard, is twisted.
It is only the man who is totally free who can look and understand immediately.
Freedom implies really, doesn't it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely
to empty the whole content of the mind--that is real freedom. Freedom is not
mere revolt from circumstances, which again breeds other circumstances,
other environmental influences, which enslave the mind. We are talking about
a freedom that comes naturally, easily, unasked for, when the mind is
capable of functioning at its highest level.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
On Freedom

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The free person is one who does not fear to go to the end of his or her thought.

Leon Blum

The freedom from something is not true freedom. The freedom
to do anything you want to do is also not the freedom I am
talking about. My vision of freedom is to be yourself.

Osho
Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself

Freedom is the basic condition for you to touch life, to touch the
blue sky, the trees, the birds, the tea, and the other person.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

freedom 2

When you can look a thing dead in the eye, acknowledge that it exists,
call it exactly what it is, and decide what role it will take in your life then,
my Beloved, you have taken the first step toward your freedom.

Iyanla Vanzant

They only have freedom who ideally love freedom themselves and are
glad to extend it to others. They who care to have slaves must chain
themselves to them. Those who build walls to create exclusion for
others, build walls across their own freedom.

Rabindranath Tagore

What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is
something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.

Erica Jong

Freedom--no word was ever spoken that has held out
greater hope, demanded greater sacrifice, needed more
to be nurtured, blessed more the giver. . . or came closer
to being God's will on earth.

Omar N. Bradley

Keenan also delved into the idea of personal freedom and mask-wearing.
"It's just an absurdity. We wear seatbelts. We don't smoke in trains,
planes or taxis anymore, or even restaurants. There's reasons for those
things," he said of those who reject masks or use the concept as a vehicle
to project hate. "I don't know. I feel like there's this twist on the idea of
personal freedom where somehow freedom is you being able to walk into
anybody's house and take a dump on their meal or shout ugly things at
their grandma. That's not what freedom is. Freedom is the ability to pursue
your lifestyle, pursue what you want to do for your family, for your future,
what education you want to get. And with that freedom comes a responsibility
to look out for yourself, for your neighbor, for your family, for everybody.
So there are some compromises that come along with freedom.
I'm not sure why that's so difficult to grasp."

Maynard James Keenan
(from and interview with Rania Aniftos)