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FREEDOM

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[QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS]

see:

AMERICA

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BILL OF RIGHTS

CIVIL RIGHTS

CONSTITUTION

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

DEMOCRACY

EQUAL RIGHTS, EQUALITY

FREE, FREE PRESS, FREE SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

HUMAN RIGHTS

INDEPENDENCE

LIBERTY

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WILLIAM PENN

PRIVACY

PROTEST, PROTESTORS

RIGHTS

SEARCH & SEIZURE

SELF-DETERMINATION

GEORGE WASHINGTON

---

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country
is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
--Lord Acton (1834—1902)
British historian.
"The History of Freedom in Antiquity" [1877],
address to the Members of the Bridgnorth Institute [26 February 1877].

-

I must study politics and war, that my sons
may have the liberty to study mathematics
and philosophy, geography, natural history
and naval architecture, in order to give
their children a right to study painting,
poetry, music, architecture, statuary,
tapestry, and porcelain.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
_Letters to his Wife: Vol. II_, Letter #78 [1780]


When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking,
or thinking, I cannot chose but laugh. No such thing
ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it
will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you
and I shall write and speak no more.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson [15 July 1818].


There is but one element of government, and that is *the people.*
From this element spring all governments. For a nation to be
free, it is only necessary that she wills it. For a nation to be
slave, it is only necessary that she wills it.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
Letter to John Taylor [1814].

-

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.
--Aneurin Bevan (1897—1960)
British Labour politician.
In Michael Foot _Aneurin Bevan_ [1962], vol. 1, ch. 3.

Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States
has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions
of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition
is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple,
rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and
powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. America
tells one story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of
freedom and equality. From its first settlers and its
political foundings on, there has been no dispute that
freedom and equality are the essence of justice for us.
No one serious or notable has stood outside this consensus.
You had to be a crank or a buffoon (e.g., Henry Adams or
H.L. Mencken, respectively) to get attention as a nonbeliever
in the democracy.
--Allan Bloom (1930—1992)
American writer and educator.
_The Closing of the American Mind_ [1987]

There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom
where its edicts are not resisted.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.

None who have always been free can understand the
terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom
to those who are not free.
--Pearl S. Buck (1892—1973)
American author noted for her novels of life in China;
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_What America Means to Me_ [1943]

A free press can of course be good or bad, but,
most certainly, without freedom it will never be
anything but bad . . . . Freedom is nothing else
but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement
is a certainty of the worse.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_Resistance, Rebellion, and Death_ [1960]

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable
condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
--Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870—1938)
American jurist and associate justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court [1932—1938].

Attack another's rights and you
destroy your own.
--John Jay Chapman (1862—1933)
American author and critic.

In the British Empire we not only look out across the seas
towards each other, but backwards to our own history, to
Magna Charta, to Habeas Corpus, to the Petition of Right,
to Trial by Jury, to the English Common Law and to
Parliamentary democracy. These are the milestones and
monuments that mark the path along which the British
race has marched to leadership and freedom. And over all
this, uniting each Dominion with the other and uniting us all
with our majestic past, is the golden circle of the Crown.
What is within the circle? Not only the glory of an ancient
unconquered people, but the hope, the sure hope, of a
broadening life for hundreds of millions of men.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Speech, Canada Club, London, England [20 April 1939].

Progress depends very largely on the encouragement of variety.
Whatever tends to standardize the community, to establish fixed and
rigid modes of thought, tends to fossilize society...It is the
ferment of ideas, the clash of disagreeing judgments, the privilege
of the individual to develop his own thoughts and shape his own
character, that makes progress possible.
--Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933)
American Republican statesman and President [1923—1929].
_Autobiography_

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
_Table Talk_

Freedom is no heritage. Preservation of
freedom is a fresh challenge and a fresh
conquest for each generation. It is based
on the religious concept of the dignity of
man. The discovery that man is free is
the greatest discovery of the ages.
--C. Donald Dallas (1881-1959)

You can only protect your liberties
in this world by protecting the
other man's freedom. You can
only be free if I am free.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.
Addressing a jury in Chicago [1920],
quoted in Arthur Weinberg _Attorney for the Damned_ [1957].

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom,
those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active
and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any
number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles
upon sleeping men.
--Voltairine de Cleyre (1866—1912)
American anarchist.
_Anarchism and American Traditions_ [1908]

Nature smiles at the union of freedom and
equality in our utopias. For freedom and
equality are sworn and everlasting enemies,
and when one prevails the other dies. Leave
men free, and their natural inequalities will
multiply almost geometrically, as in England
and America in the nineteenth century under
laissez-faire. To check the growth of
inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in
Russia after 1917. Even when repressed,
inequality grows; only the man who is below
the average in economic ability desires
equality; those who are conscious of
superior ability desire freedom, and in the
end superior ability has its way.
--Will [William James] Durant (1885—1981)
& Ariel Durant (1898—1981)
American husband and wife writing collaborators whose
_Story of Civilization_ 11 vol. [1935—1975], established
them among the best known writers of popular
philosophy and history. {EB}
_The Lessons of History_

-

Everything that is really great and inspiring
is created by the individual who can labor
in freedom.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
_Out Of My Later Years_ [1950]


Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I
looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always
boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities
immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the
newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed
their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a
few short weeks... Only the Church stood squarely across the path of
Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest
in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration
because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to
stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to
confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
"Time" (magazine) [(23 December 1940], p. 38

-

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions,
the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned
and refreshed—else like a flower cut from its
life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890—1969),
American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII,
NATO commander, American President [1953—1961].
In a speech to the English Speaking Union, London [1944].

Sytems political or religious or racial
or national—will not just respect us
because we practice freedom, they
will fear us because we do.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
In "Harper's Magazine" [June 1956].

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is
safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a
nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose
outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her,
and admit censorship.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.
_Two Cheers for Democracy_ [1951],
"The Tercentenary of the Areopagitica"

-

History suggests that capitalism is a
necessary condition for political freedom.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist;
winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
_Capitalism and Freedom_ [1962]


A society that puts equality . . . ahead of
freedom will end up with neither equality
nor freedom.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist;
winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
_Free to Choose_ [1979] w/ Rose Friedman

-

-

The New York Post recently compiled a list of the things
that the New York City Council tried to ban - not all successfully
-just in 2006 alone: pit bulls; trans fats; aluminum baseball
bats; the purchase of tobacco by 18 to 20-year-olds; foie
gras; pedicabs in parks; new fast-food restaurants (but only
in poor neighborhoods); lobbyists from the floor of council
chambers; lobbying city agencies after working at the same
agency; vehicles in Central and Prospect parks; cell phones
in upscale restaurants; the sale of pork products made in a
processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization
dispute; mail-order pharmaceutical plans; candy-flavored
cigarettes; gas-station operators adjusting prices more than
once daily; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus; Wal-
Mart.

On Jan. 2 in Washington, D.C., the city council's smoking
ban was extended to bars and nightclubs. Even private
clubs, where members must pay through the teeth to
associate voluntarily, are forbidden to allow smoking
on their own property. In some states, you can't smoke
in your car if young children are present - your own
children that is. In California, outdoor smoking bans
are all the rage. [. . . ]

--Jonah Goldberg (1969— )
American conservative commentator and author.
"Banned By The Man" [14 January 2007]

-

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies
there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no
constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help
it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts
of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled
will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the
denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow.
A society in which men recognize no check upon their
freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is
the possession of only a savage few; as we have
learned to our sorrow.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
_The Spirit of Liberty_ [1944] p. 190


That community is already in the process of dissolution
where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible
enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed,
political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection;
where denunciation, without specification or backing,
takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes
freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual
supremacy of reason has become so timid that we
dare not enter out convictions in the open lists, to
win or lose.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
Speech to the Board of Regents, University of
the State of New York [24 October 1952].

-

-

A society that does not recognize that each individual
has values of his own which he is entitled to follow
can have no respect for the dignity of the individual
and cannot really know freedom.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of the
1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.


The system of private property is the most important
guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own
property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of the
1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_The Road to Selfdom_ [1944], ch. 8 "Who, Whom?"

-

For every man who lives without freedom,
the rest of us must face the guilt.
--Lillian Hellman (1905—1984)
American dramatist.
_Watch on the Rhine_ [1941], act II

If there is any principle of the Constitution that
more imperatively calls for attachment than any
other it is the principle of free thought—not free
thought for those who agree with us but freedom
for the thought we hate.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
In a Supreme Court opinion
"United States v. Schwimmer" [1928].

It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion—for
jackals, not men. Men who have the moral courage
to fight intelligently for freedom have the best
prospects of avoiding the fate of both live jackals
and dead lions. Survival is not the be-all and end-
all of a life worthy of man. Sometimes the worst
we can know about a man is that he has survived.
Those who say life is worth living at any price
have already written for themselves an epitaph of
infamy, for there is no cause and no person they
will not betray to stay alive. Man's vocation
should be the use of the arts of intelligence in
behalf of human freedom.
--Sidney Hook (1902—1989)
American educator and social philosopher.

Free speech does not live many hours after
free industry and free commerce die.
--Herbert Hoover (1874—1964)
American Republican statesman, President 1929—1933.
In a speech in New York City [22 October 1928].

Poverty curtails individual freedom. So do illiteracy,
prejudice, lack of education, and inability to obtain
the basic needs of life.
--Hubert H. Humphrey (1911—1978)
38th vice-president of the United States
[1965—1969] and liberal senator [1949—1965
& 1971—1978].
_The Cause is Mankind_ [1964]

You should never wear your best
trousers when you go out to fight
for freedom and truth.
--Henrik Ibsen (1828—1906)
Norwegian playwright.
_An Enemy of the People_ [1882], Act V

-

Those who desire to give up freedom in order
to gain security, will not have, nor do they
deserve, either one.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].


If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization, it expects what
never was and never will be.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Colonel Charles Yancy [6 January 1916].

-

Freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the
scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to
go where you want, and do as you desire, and
choose the leaders you please. You do not take
a person who for years has been hobbled by chains
and liberate him, bring him to the starting line
of a race and then say, "you are free to compete
with all the others," and still justly believe that
you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough
just to open the gates of opportunity. All citizens
must have the ability to walk through these gates.
This is the next and most profound stage of the battle
for civil rights. We seek not just legal equity but
human stability, not just equality as a right and
a theory but equality as a fact and equality as
a result.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].

Even our schools teach the globalist message that
there is "nothing more horrible than war." This is a
lie, as people who live under dictators well know.
Consider the killing fields of Cambodia, or Mao's
murderous reign. Consider the Soviet starvation of
Ukraine. Consider the death camps of the Nazis,
or China's destruction of Tibet, or just read the
newspapers about Saddam's Iraq where parents
were controlled through the torture of their children.
Do this, and you will know we are teaching a deadly
lie. For if we teach only the horrors of war, and not
also the horrors of tyranny, we teach cowardice.
And cowards can never stay free.
--Bob Just,
"Why the U.N. can never bring peace"

The superior virtue is not to be free but
to fight for freedom.
--Nikos Kazantzakis (1883—1957)
Cretan civil servant and foreign correspondent.
_The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises_ [1927]

A person in good health in a Western liberal democracy
is, in terms of his objective circumstances, one of the
most fortunate human beings ever to have walked the
surface of the earth.
--John Lanchester, "Pursuing happiness,"
_The New Yorker_ [27 February 2006]

-

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries
she With silent lips.

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddle masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

--Emma Lazarus (1849—1887)
American poet.
"The New Collosus" [1883]
Engraved on the pedastal of the Statue of Liberty.

-

Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which
proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the
class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate
to the interests of the class war. Everything is moral which is
necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting order and for
uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close
discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters.
--V.I. Lenin (1870—1924)
Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (1917—1924).

Whoever has really seen Russia will find himself content to live
anywhere else. It is always good to know that a society exists
where no happiness is possible because, by a law of nature,
man cannot be happy unless he is free.
--Astolphe Louis Leonard, Marquis de Custine (1790—1857)
French writer, playwright, poet and traveler.
_La Russia en 1839_ "Peterhof, July 23, 1839"

-

In 1981 President Reagan closed his inaugural address with this
clincher: "The crisis we are facing today... does require... our
best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to
believe in our ability to perform great deeds; to believe that
together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems
which now confront us. And, after all, why shouldn't we believe
that? _We are Americans._" Amen.

The left, here and abroad, hates this. They hate it because they
know it is true. They resent the reliance on God; they despise the
reliance on self; they loathe the individualism and the strength and
the instinct to tackle problems without genuflecting toward
government. Ronald Reagan was right, as were generations of ordinary
Americans before him and since: we can do anything we put our minds
to. The whole idea enrages liberals. [...]

In an essay on OpenDemocracy.net titled "Fashionable Anti-
Americanism," taking on the mindless anti-U.S. poppycock around the
globe, the writer Dominic Hilton concludes: "After the fascistic and
communistic horrors of the 20th century, we are bloody lucky to live
in a world led by the United States in which the central
geopolitical questions are, 'Should we spread liberty and democracy?
And if so, how far?'"

Superb point. He doesn't make an essential related point, so I will:
There is only one reason that "the fascistic and communistic horrors
of the 20th century" are no more. The United States of America
defeated them all.[...]

Victor Davis Hanson points out on National Review Online that in
less than four months, we have seen elections take place in
Afghanistan, the Ukraine, among the Palestinians, and in Iraq: "In
the span of 113 days, more than 100 million people, living on two
continents, have cast free votes in nations that had never known
true democracy."

God bless America.

--Rush Limbaugh (1951—)
American radio entertainer.
_The Limbaugh Letter_ [February 2005]

-

A house divided against itself cannot stand.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].

And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
"A Fable for Critics" [1848]

-

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom
produces; and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves
his cell he cannot bear the light of day: he is unable to discriminate
colours, or recognise faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him
into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The
blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations
which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let
them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years
men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides.
Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of
truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And at length a
system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as
a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till
they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the
fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till
he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they
become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait
for ever.

--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
"Milton" in _Edinburgh Review_ [August 1825]

-

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there
are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of
the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those
in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
--James Madison (1751—1836)
Fourth president of the United States [1809—1817].
In a speech in the Virginia Convention [16 June 1788].

You can't separate peace from freedom because
no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
--Malcolm X (1925—1965)
American civil rights campaigner.
Speech in New York City [7 January 1965].

If a nation values anything more than freedom,
it will lose its freedom.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_Strictly Personal_ [1941], ch. 31

After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom
is the first and strongest want of human nature.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_The Subjection of Women_, 4, [1869]

Not for the flag,
Of any land because myself was born there,
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that land where man is free,
And that will I defend.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892—1950)
American poet.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men;
the rest love not freedom but license.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
_Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_ [1649]

The freedom of any society varies proportionately
with the volume of its laughter.
--Zero Mostel (1915—1977)
Stage actor who was blacklisted in the 1950s.

-

Nations live or die by the way they respond to the particular
challenges they face. Those challenges may be internal or
external; they may be faced by a nation alone or in concert
with other nations; they may come gradually or suddenly.
There is no immutable law of nature that says only the
unjust will be afflicted, or that the just will prevail. While
might certainly does not make right, neither does right by
itself make might. The time when a nation most craves
ease may be the moment when it can least afford to let
down its guard. The moment when it most wishes it could
address its domestic needs may be the moment when it
most urgently has to confront an external threat. The
nation that survives is the one that rises to meet that
moment: that has the wisdom to recognize the threat
and the will to turn it back, and that does so before it
is too late....

The naïve notion that we can preserve freedom by exuding
goodwill is not only silly, but dangerous. The more adherents
it wins, the more it tempts the aggressor.

--Richard Nixon (1913—1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969—1974].
_The Real War_ [1980]

-

As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to
say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom
can never be lost, and science can never regress.
--J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904—1967)
American physicist and the director of
the Manhattan Project.
In "Life" magazine [10 October 1949].

Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and
likely path to liberty. With money comes power over
the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from
exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built,
communities formed, religions practiced, educations
pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such
real and material freedoms. They have a more
innocent—not to say toddlerlike—idea of freedom.
Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their
mouths, to say bad words and to expose their
private parts in art museums.
--P.J. O'Rourke (1947— )
American political satirist.

-

Those who expect to receive the blessings of freedom
must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
--Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
_The American Crisis_ #4 [12 September 1777]


O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only
the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of
the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom
hath been hunted round the globe. Asian, and Africa
have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a
stranger and England hath given her warning to
depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time
an asylun for mankind.
--Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
_Common Sense_ [1776]

-

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human
freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed
of slaves.
--William Pitt, the Younger, (1759—1806)
British prime minister [1783—1801, 1804—1806]
during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Speech to the House of Commons on the India Bill [18 November 1783].

-

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in
Don't Fence Me In

--Cole Porter (1892—1964)
American songwriter.
"Don't Fence Me In"
[written in 1934 & published in 1944]
It was based on a poem by Bob Fletcher.

-

It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's
someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's
service, there's someone being served. The man who
speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters.
And intends to be the master. But if you ever hear a
man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your
natural right, that your first duty is to yourself—that
will be the man who's not after your soul.
--Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
_The Fountainhead_ [1943], Part 4, Ch. 14

-

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment
of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the
wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become
reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand
faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
"Tear Down This Wall" speech, West Berlin [12 June 1987]

& see:

It was difficult not to cringe during Reagan's speech in 1987. He
didn't leave a single Berlin cliché out of his script. At the end of
it, most experts agreed that his demand for the removal of the
Wall was inopportune, utopian and crazy.

Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from the
map. Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the East Germans
who played the larger role. When analysts are confronted by real
people, amazing things can happen. And maybe history can repeat
itself. Maybe the people of Syria, Iran or Jordan will get the idea in
their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just
as the East Germans did. When the voter turnout in Iraq recently
exceeded that of many Western nations, the chorus of critique
from Iraq alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted.
Just as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night of
Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall fell.

Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right,
just like Reagan was then.

--Claus Christian Malzahn, "Could George W. Bush Be Right?",
Der Spiegel [23 February 2005]

-

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and
expression—everywhere in the world. The second is
freedom of every person to worship God in his own
way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom
from want. . . everywhere in the world. The fourth
is freedom from fear. . . anywhere in the world.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
Message to Congress [6 January 1941].

-

Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils.
--John Stark (1728—1822)
American revolutionary officer.
[31 July 1809]

My definition of a free society is a society
where it is safe to be unpopular.
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.
In a speech in Detroit, Michigan [7 October 1952].

-

We want a society where people are free to make
choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and
compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral
society; not a society where the state is responsible
for everything, and no one is responsible for the
state.
--Margaret Thatcher (1925— )
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].


Sir Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the
birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than
they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they
lost everything — security, comfort, and freedom. This was
because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to
give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom
from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to
be free.
--Margaret Thatcher (1925— )
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].
"The Moral Foundations of Society,"
Lecture in Hillsdale [Michigan] College's Center for Constructive
Alternatives seminar, "God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity
in the 20th Century" [November 1994].

-

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave
men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined
to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones. [...]
Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the
whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance,
but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the
exercise of their own will.
--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859)
French historian and politician.
_Democracy in America_ [1835-1840]

I am inordinately proud these days of the quill, for
it has shown itself, historically, to be the hypodermic
which inoculates men and keeps the germ of freedom
always in circulation, so that there are individuals
in every time in every land who are the carriers, the
Typhoid Mary's, capable of infecting others by mere
contact and example. These persons are feared by
every tyrant—who shows his fear by burning the
books and destroying the individuals.
--E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985)
American essayist and literary stylist.
"Freedom" written in July 1940, in
_One Man's Meat_ [1944]

The right to silence is more than the mere right to refuse to answer
incriminating questions. It is the respect which society pays to the
inviolability of each man's soul in an era when hypnotism, narco-
analysis, truth serums, lie detectors and other scientific devices
are being used to force the revelation of truths by persons who
desire to keep them secret. . . . It is a last bastion against an
ever more omnipotent government. It is the final shield against
invasion of the soul. Protection from this kind of assault is the
sine qua non of the essential dignity of man.
--Edward Bennett Williams (1920—1988)
American lawyer.
_One Man's Freedom_ [1962], Ch. 8

Every generation must wage a new war for freedom
against new forces that seek through new devices
to enslave mankind.
--Plank of the platform of the Conference
for Progressive Political Action [1924].

-

Cicero once wrote that to be completely free one
must become a slave to a set of laws. In other
words, accepting limitations is liberating.


end page



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