My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.

And he had a nice home in Ohio with wife, daughter, Christmas tree, two cars, garage, lawn, lawnmower, but he couldn't enjoy any of it because he really wasn't free. It was sadly true.

We must look elsewhere for Eden. Spring is good; but freedom and justice are better. Eden is moral, not material.

It means what you are, wanting what you want and going after it without a sens od shame. People are slaves to rules.

Once people who have been deprived of basic freedom taste a little of it, they want all of it.

But the idea of America, the promise of America: this I clung to with a stubbornness that surprised even me. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"—that was my America. The America Tocqueville wrote about, the countryside of Whitman and Thoreau, with no person my inferior or my better; the America of pioneers heading west in search of a better life or immigrants landing on Ellis Island, propelled by a yearning for freedom.

I was looking for something to love, for I was in love with loving, and I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. from Caged Bird

Father, Your Word says that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. With all my heart I desire to stand firm, then, and not let myself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Gal. 5:1). Lord, I am helpless on my own. Empower me with the strength of Your Holy Spirit. Please help me, Lord!

Every tone [of the songs of the slaves] was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.