Best 5891 quotes in «freedom quotes» category

I can't walk beside you for reasons of my own, but everytime you cross my mind, I send love to you, you know.

Ich denke, wir weinen, damit wir den tierischen Regungen in uns Raum geben können, ohne dass wir unsere Menschlichkeit aufgeben. Denn in meinem Inneren ist ein Tier, das knurrt und schnaubt und an seinen Ketten zerrt, um in die Freiheit und vor allem ins Leben zu gelangen. Und so sehrich mich auch bemühe, ich kann dieses Tier nicht töten..

Ich will doch sehen, wer mich hält, - wer mich zwingt, - wer der Mensch ist, der einen Menschen zwingen kann.

Ich wünsche mir, dass sich unsere Gesellschaft tolerant, wertbewusst und vor allen Dingen in Liebe zur Freiheit entwickelt und nicht vergisst, dass die Freiheit der Erwachsenen Verantwortung heißt.

I climb behind the steering wheel... I drive off immediately without once looking back; it's a long journey but it leads to freedom.

I choose the irrational from a rational position. I’m positioning myself on Undo, undo even undoing. Un-think, because routines dull the mind, and you don’t see what’s in front of you. Familiarity breeds contempt, and also lack of in-sight and out-sight.

{Colonel Carr's testimony of Colonel Robert Ingersoll at his funeral} He was the boldest, most aggressive, courageous, virile, and the kindest and gentlest and most considerate and loving man I ever knew. His was a nature that yielded to no obstacles, that could not be moved nor turned aside by the allurements of place or position, the menaces of power, the favors of the opulent, or the enticing influences of public opinion. Entering upon his career in an age of obsequiousness and time-serving, when the values of political and religious views were estimated by what they would bring from the ruling party and from the church, in offices and emoluments and benefices, he assailed the giant evils of the times with the strength and power of Hercules and ground them to dust under his trip-hammer blows. Throughout his whole active life, there has been no greater and more potential influence than the personality of this sublime character in breaking the shackles of the slave, and in freeing men and women and children from the bonds of ignorance and superstition.

I choose beauty over bitterness I choose discovery over doubt I choose freedom over fear I choose grace over grief I choose peace over panic I choose surrender over suffering I choose trust over terror I choose wisdom over warefare I choose life, light and love

I closed my eyes and turned my face into the cold wind. When I felt it swept along my skin there was no past. No future. Just now.

I consider Anarchism the most beautiful and practical philosophy that has yet been thought of in its application to individual expression and the relation it establishes between the individual and society. Moreover, I am certain that Anarchism is too vital and too close to human nature ever to die. It is my conviction that dictatorship, whether to the right or to the left, can never work--that it never has worked, and that time will prove this again, as it has been proved before. When the failure of modern dictatorship and authoritarian philosophies becomes more apparent and the realization of failure more general, Anarchism will be vindicated. Considered from this point, a recrudescence of Anarchist ideas in the near future is very probable. When this occurs and takes effect, I believe that humanity will at last leave the maze in which it is now lost and will start on the path to sane living and regeneration through freedom.

I couldn’t articulate how the name made me feel. Shawn had meant it to humiliate me, to lock me in time, into an old idea of myself. But far from fixing me in place, that word transported me. Every time he said it—“Hey Nigger, raise the boom” or “Fetch me a level, Nigger”—I returned to the university, to that auditorium, where I had watched human history unfold and wondered at my place in it. The stories of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were called to my mind every time Shawn shouted, “Nigger, move to the next row.” I saw their faces superimposed on every purlin Shawn welded into place that summer, so that by the end of it, I had finally begun to grasp something that should have been immediately apparent: that someone had opposed the great march toward equality; someone had been the person from whom freedom had to be wrested. I did not think of my brother as that person; I doubt I will ever think of him that way. But something had shifted nonetheless. I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others—because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.

I could tell he wanted the best for me. Of course, he assumed that would be getting out. Everyone always thought that, not of what we had to go back to, at home. Maybe our parents had thrown away our mattresses. Maybe they'd told our siblings we'd been run over by trains, to make our absence fonder. Not everyone had a parent. It could be that nothing was waiting for us. Our keys would no longer fit the locks. We'd resort to ringing the bell, saying we've come home, can't we come in? The eye in the peephole would show itself, and that eye could belong to a stranger, as our family had moved halfway across the country and never informed us. Or that eye could belong to the woman who carried us for nine months, who labored for fourteen hours, who was sliced open with a C-section to give us life, and now wished she never did. The juvenile correctional system could let us out into the world, but it could not control who would be out there, willing to claim us.

I create a home that is a safe and nurturing place for me, where I am free to gather myself.

Ideas: cages for the free spirit.

I’d been so caught up in surviving and staying free, that I'd forgotten that freedom was a state of mind.

Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology… we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.

I didn't get to God by effort or title, I got there by invitation. God can lift you quickly if you let Him. He really cares.

I didn't come from a success lineage but I am so glad that my earthly lineage is not my final story because when I gave my life to Jesus twelve years back, God interrupted my story.

I didn't know the first thing about the people around me, but that didn't matter: I was in a new world; and I had the feelings that at last I had put my finger on the secret of freedom.

I didn’t know I was in a prison until I was told I could go no further than where I am. It was in that moment that I determined to free myself. I am becoming much greater than I am today. I need the belief to grow.

I didn't think I was going to survive. A lot of people don't make it, but I left anyway. I left my father and my mother and my sister and my brother." She rinses the cloth, continues. "They tried to stop me. They said it wasn't worth my life, but I said that it was my life, going to go and either I was going to die or I was going to get a better life...I tell you, when I left my house that night I never felt more free. Even now, in all the time that I've been here, I never felt as free as that night.

I didn’t know what to do when I realized that a religion that promised me heaven only seemed to bring me a perpetual hell. I was made to believe that was the normal Christian life; then I heard the gospel.

I dig and plough at your command,' I replied, 'but you will not tell me how to shit.

I'd left them because I'd loved them. Beth and my parents and my friends and my life-my free, American life. I loved them, and if I had a chance to protect them from the people who wanted to destroy them then I had to take that chance even if it meant I would never see them again.

I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

I do not believe in equality of results. I believe in "equal opportunity" and "equality before the law".

I do not need to grow up or train in the gym in order to beat the devil, when I know that my God can beat him for me.

I do not have any trust fund, I have always trusted God for all my funds.

I do not know what came first, the brown-nose worker or the arrogant boss; I simple hate it and I not be part of it.

I do not understand when a person is more concerned with the appearance of their house than the state of their home.

I do not wait till i am in trouble till i can call on God. I have learned to speak the way God speaks, I have learned to see things the way God sees and I have also learned to handle it the way God handles it. Christ is the daily language of my mouth and faith is my daily talk and my actions have become the language of my life.

I don't have a diary, I don't write things into a diary. I imprint myself into the sky and when the sunlight shines brightly, I can stand under the sun's rays and everything I have imprinted of myself into the sky, I will begin to see again, feel again, remember. And when the wind begins to blow, it blows the details over my face, and I remember everything I left in the sky and see new things being born. I am unwritten.

I don’t exist metal pressed to pages spilling blood, ink in vein each thought rages Sunlight shooting through a forest of pines black top winding and yellow dotted lines I am not here only a deep aching, a lightning flash and a tree trunk breaking Sheets once alive covered in a deep red mark the present but I am not yet dead Nothing is here only the rain and mist fresh air and soil I do not need to exist.

I don't care for the colour of your skin, I care for the size of your heart behind it.

I don't just have only the peace of God, I do also have a God who gives peace, not just resources but the revelation of His presence.

I don't have much patience for people who enjoy limitless liberty while decrying those who get their hands dirty to make sure it exists for them.

I don't need anyone to tell me how to be free.

I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusion about freedom plague them both.

I dont want ordinary, i will tire easily of that, my restless spirit needs someone that knows how to lead my stubborn heart into adventure and show me new paths through old doorways, whether in sight or in mind. Give me 9-5, comfort and medicore and i'll leave faster than i entered. I know not much about love but ive experienced much about what it isn't.

I don't think I'm entirely on board with the 'do what you truly want to do' school of thought. Not without a little more nuance. There has to be an anchor in the wide-open space. Otherwise, 'doing what you truly want' isn't an authentic attempt at exploration -- it's just another hyper-individualistic credo masquerading as something grand. I mean we're all gung ho about pursuing personal freedom, but why do we want it? If we never constructively apply it to something beyond ourselves, and if it doesn't deepen our sense of connection and humanity, then what's the point?

I don't want to settle down because God has satisfied me and heard my prayers. I want to stay hungry and thirsty for the things of God.

I don’t want your love. I want the same love you want. I don’t want your love. I want what you want & we can find It together & share our deepening experience of It….I thought it was your love I wanted and it hurt so much when you couldn’t give it. I even made a bargain that if I gave it to you, I could expect it back. I thought you agreed to this bargain. I thought you were part of the deal. I lived in fear that your love would disappear. I moved so deeply into the veil. Now I hear within me the whispering of something else. I feel the possibility of a Love that has nothing to do with you – an infinite resource that it always there. This Love is not affected by any condition, nor does it change in the stream of time. It is the same Love whether my body is strong or weak, whether I am rich and bountiful in material things or whether I am poor. It is not affected by things of this world. This is the Love that brings release. This is the Love that dissolves chains. This is the love that brings peace. This is the only Love I want. It releases you, my friend, from all our contracts.” Stephen Schwartz, Compassionate Presence

I don't want to imagine meadows, I want to run through them

I don't want to be told that it's the people with power over us who are guilty, that we're innocent slaves, that we're not guilty because we're not free. I am free! I'm building a Vernichtungslager; I have to answer to the people who'll be gassed here. I can say "No". There's nothing can stop me—as long as I can find the strength to face my destruction.

I don't want freedom gram by gram, grain by grain. I have to break this steel chain with my teeth! I don't want freedom as a drug, as a medicine, I want it as the sun, as the earth, as the heavens! Step, step aside, you invader! I am the loud voice of this land! I don't need a puny spring, I am thirsting for oceans!

I'd rather be miserable and free than happy and caged.

I even want to deny that what is implied by a piece of reason in human free will have no meaning other than freedom itself. Freedom to think. Freedom to determine their own destiny.

I'd seen entire constellations of possibility I'd never previously been aware of, so blinded had I been by the bright, glaring stars of expectation. Freedom, I was beginning to think, had less to do with where you were, and was more about who you were trying to be.

If a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]