Limiting Freedom Quotes

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. ~ John Stuart Mill

The threat or fear of violence should not become an excuse or justification for restricting freedom of speech. ~ Alan Dershowitz

There is a time and a place for creativity. ~ William Redington Hewlett

When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities. ~ William J. Clinton

The law is agnostic about truth. ~ Alan Dershowitz

And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history. ~ David Icke

I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought. ~ Jimmy Wales

I believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America. ~ Kirk Cameron

Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire. ~ Abbie Hoffman

I believe in freedom of speech, but I believe we should also have the right to comment on freedom of speech. ~ Stockwell Day

I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people. ~ Brad Thor

Freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul. ~ Louisa May Alcott

The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're
born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you
assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to
which you resist is the degree to which you are free ... ~ Utah Phillips

As hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world. ~ George W. Bush

Freedom is uncertain, because it is up to you to decide. ~ Adam Vether

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. ~ H.L. Mencken

Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and fortitude, will, in a little time, supply the place of every inferior passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism. ~ Thomas Paine

Discipline and freedom are not mutually exclusive but mutually dependent because otherwise, you'd sink into chaos. ~ Paulo Coelho

Our job isn't to defend freedom of speech, but without freedom of speech we are dead. We can't live in a country without freedom of speech. I prefer to die than live like a rat. ~ Charb

When we are allowed two seconds of freedom, be prepared for me to tear your clothes off."
"That sounds like a perfect plan. ~ Amanda Carlson

Make the Universal personal and you become richer, wiser and stronger. Make the personal Universal and you will find freedom, compassion and love ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

I'm not really afraid of somebody who's very politically vocal. My mother is very strong, and I really believe in freedom of speech. ~ Lindsey Haun

We are free only if we face the challenge of freedom, do the work of freedom, fight the fight of freedom and die the death for freedom. ~ Charles Gilchrist Adams

There's nothing at the center of what we do ... No center. It doesn't exist. All of us-look at our lives: We have an acceptable level of affluence. We have entertainment. We have a relative freedom from fear. But there's nothing else. ~ Douglas Coupland

But since I realised that peace and freedom were unattainable on earth, my spirit aspired aloft, and everything that my chosen path required ceased to conflict with my conscience, because my conscience was calling me out into space, and was not much interested in what was happening on earth. ~ Victor Pelevin

I felt I was finally in a position to affect not only the artistic content of the American theatre, but also its institutional structures. This has been an important goal of mine, as there have always been a variety of issues - artistic freedom, author's rights, access by minority groups - which have concerned me and even influenced my decision to become a playwright in the first place. ~ David Henry Hwang

Space is infinite. To the mind that means freedom, liberation.' So wrote Arisko, our greatest turkle philosopher, in his most famous work, 'Thoughts In A Bathtub'," said Dottia, dreamily, in an inspired state. ~ Philip Dodd

The fact was, as a story - even leaving out the supernatural, especially leaving out the supernatural, taking it all as metaphor, I mean - the Bible made perfect sense to me from the very beginning. I saw a God whose nature was creative love. He made man in his own image for the purpose of forming new and free relationships with him. But in his freedom, man turned away from that relationship to consult his own wisdom and desires. The knowledge of good and evil was not some top-secret catalogue of nice and naughty acts that popped into Eve's mind when a talking snake got her to eat the magic fruit. The knowledge was built into the action of disobedience itself: it's what she learned when she overruled the moral law God had placed within her. There was no going back from that. The original sin poisoned all history. History's murders, rapes, wars, oppressions, and injustices are now the inescapable plot of the story we're in. The ~ Andrew Klavan

It was tragic how life had sucked her down to the bones, all her spontaneity her laughter and freedom had vanished. I knew then that I didn't ever want to be like that. Whatever happened, life was something too precious to give up on so easily. ~ Belinda Jeffrey

Each of us - rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white - we are fragile and finite. We all go through this glorious life without guarantees, without promises of rescue or redemption. We have freedom of speech and religion, and the absolute freedom to leave behind our loved ones, or to force them to unhappily pursue us. ~ Sherman Alexie

I was afraid of marriage. I had the impression married life would take up all my time. I saw myself drowning in visits and parties. No freedom. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

I think that the United States should be the leader, not only militarily. We need to stand for freedom; we need to stand for justice in the world, because there aren't too many countries that do. ~ James K. Glassman

Donald Trump creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss. ~ Mitt Romney

Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom. ~ Kahlil Gibran

The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time. ~ Margaret Atwood

She couldn't live her life as someone's prisoner the way he had lived his, caught up in a dream of the past, with no way forward and no way back, forced to dig down inside oneself. ~ Natsuo Kirino

If you accept – and I do – that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don't say or like or want said. The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don't. This is how the Law is made. People making art find out where the limits of free expression are by going beyond them and getting into trouble. [...] The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible. ~ Neil Gaiman

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains. ~ Assata Shakur

O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well to leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of Fate, lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel stay those who to thy sacred portals come to waste the gifts of Freedom. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Not everyone would see a passive public as necessarily a bad thing. There are benefits to limiting political engagement to a minority of highly committed citizens, with the majority involving itself only in elections and other major events. This elitist theory exists as as strand within Western democratic thought, with proponents arguing that modern governance is so complex that over-politicisation of issues and over-participation by the masses is an liability: it would add an irrational element to governance that could undermine democracy. Sustainable democracy instead requires a fairly passive mass, such that most matters are debated and settled within the political elite, at least when things are running smoothly ~ Cherian George

Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom. ~ Milos Forman

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~ George Orwell

We must relentlessly and unyieldingly protect freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. ~ Bryant McGill

What are people searching for in life? God. In the christian scriptures, it says 'Be still and know you are God.' What is this? You are peace, compassion, truth, Love, freedom. Real love- the ability to love yourself so much that you forgive everything and you are at peace with yourself like a mother loves a child, not trying to be someone. ~ Ajahn Brahm

For an Irish-Catholic boy with a nudity hang-up, it was an island of terrible freedom in a sea of No. ~ John Valentine

Freedom is when you really get your own powers which are within you. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

Surrender is the path to freedom through our unique authenticity, where we experience the flow of life not through the narrow lens of the mind, but through the vast refuge of the heart. ~ Bryant H. McGill

The power in any society is with those who get to impose the fantasy. It is no longer, as it was for centuries throughout Europe, the church that imposes its fantasy on the populace, nor is it the totalitarian superstate that imposes the fantasy, as it did for 12 years in Nazi Germany and for 69 years in the Soviet Union. Now the fantasy that prevails is the all-consuming, voraciously consumed popular culture, seemingly spawned by, of all things, freedom. The young especially live according to the beliefs that are thought up for them by the society's most unthinking people and by businesses least impeded by innocent ends. Ingeniously as their parents and teachers may attempt to protect the young from being drawn, to their detriment, into the moronic amusement park that is now universal, the preponderance of the power is not with them. ~ Philip Roth

The nation demands a movement which has written upon its banner the internal and external national freedom that it will act as if it were the spiritual, social and political conscience of the nation. ~ Franz Von Papen

Equality cannot be imagined outside of tyranny. ~ Charles Forbes Rene De Montalembert

The deepest parts of you know that if freedom from fear was as easy as 'creating a new reality' for yourself, then you would already be the fearless person you know in your heart that you're meant to be. ~ Guy Finley

Now I'm old ... maybe I'm still an eccentric hippie. There's a wonderful freedom in the eccentricity - you can go places, you can be wacky, and you don't have to be constrained. I think that's why people are eccentric - eccentricity is a weapon ... and it's great! ~ Sylvester McCoy

More important than having the Courage of your Convictions is to possess the courage to question your convictions. This is a great source of freedom. There is no 'box to think outside of' with true freedom. ~ Timothy G Cameron

The American flag is the symbol of our freedom, national pride and history. ~ Mike Fitzpatrick

The Jews are the most miserable people on earth. They are plagued everywhere, and scattered about all countries, having no certain resting place. They sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, people or government ... but they are rightly served, for seeing they refused have Christ and his gospel, instead of freedom they must have servitude. ~ Martin Luther

Now tell me, what does that mean to be noble? Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don't follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble, and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to freedom, they'd follow you. And so would I ~ William Wallace