Quotes about Freedom

A leash is a rope with a noose at both ends.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities, and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.

I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

I understand that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him. ~Equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), pg 98

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

Man is an end in himself.

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved.

I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on.

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned

The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!