The man [Grant] who more than any other, save Lincoln, had changed us into a nation whose citizens were all freemen, realized entirely that these freemen would remain free only while they kept mastery over their own evil passions.

O Liberty...! is it well To leave the gates unguarded?

There are some things even God cannot do. He cannot force anyone to freely accept Him. Forced freedom is a contradiction in terms. This is why Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Matthew 23:37) So the only way God could literally destroy all evil is to destroy all freedom.

The fact is, it's good to be free. No one ever marches against freedom, chanting, "Down with liberty! Back to bondage! I want to do only what the government tells me to do!

All moral choices are free choices. No one can be praised or blamed for an act in which they had no free choice. If they were forced to do it, then they can't get either credit or blame. Hence if God destroyed all freedom, He would be destroying all possibility to love, praise, and worship Him — to say nothing of destroying all possibility of our enjoying His or other people's love, praise, and sacrifice on our behalf.

Freedom will bite back more fiercely when suspended than when she remains undisturbed.

Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors—be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature?

There is nothing conceivable which would so condition a man as to leave him without the slightest freedom. Therefore, a residue of freedom, however limited it may be, is left to man in neurotic and even psychotic cases. Indeed, the innermost core of the patient's personality is not even touched by a psychosis.

It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death…

Freedom and fullness of expression are of the essence of the art.

I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free.