#at

My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring! My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above. Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees Sweet freedom's song; Let mortal tongues awake; Let all that breathe partake; Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong. Our father's God to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, With freedom's holy light, Protect us by Thy might, Great God our King. ↗

— Samuel Francis Smith

#patriotic #poem #song #freedom

Freedom is not the absence of commitment, and to be committed to something or to someone does not mean the loss of freedom. But freedom exists in the realm of the unbound and to be free is to be committed to that which is a part of the unbound realm. Whatever sets your soul to flight is freedom. If someone sets your soul to flight, to stay with that person is not to lose freedom but to stay with that person is to retain freedom. Together you have what is unbound. Whatever will swell your spirit and give you wings, is freedom, and it is a fault if you let go of that for the very reason that you are afraid of losing your freedom and in doing so you have in fact let go of what will keep you unbound. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#free #freedom #inspirational #inspirational-quotes #true-freedom

Sometimes I think that I was forced to withdraw into depression because it was the only rightful protest I could throw in the face of a world that said it was alright for people to come and go as they please, that there were simply no real obligations left. ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#because #come #come and go #could #depression

I found goodness in the place that I once believed to be evil; and found evil in the place that I once always knew to be good! The truth is so far separated from where I thought it existed. It can be such a wild, unbound journey: the journey from the illusion into the truth. Some people take that journey, but more people don't. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#inspirational-freedom #inspirational-quotes-quotes #searching-for-truth #the-journey-of-truth #the-journey-to-freedom

Those nations of artists, finding their own individualism, and kind of standing against the world: to me that's the ultimate nightmare. I want to get lost and diffused in the world. ↗

— Robert Wyatt

#artists #diffused #finding #get #i

In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature. ↗

— Sei Shōnagon

#life #literature #pleasure #life

Americans are free to choose everything from what they eat, drive and watch on TV to the President of the United States. Yet, when it comes to allowing Americans to choose the health insurance that works best for them and their family, the freedom to choose suddenly becomes un-American. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#becomes #best #choose #comes #drive

I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say 'If you like what you have, you should be able to keep it.' But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#about #actually #agree #bills #congress

It took a little over a decade to build a coalition strong enough to beat the insurance companies, but in 1990, then Senator Tom Daschle and I passed a law regulating the private market for supplemental Medicare insurance policies. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#build #coalition #companies #daschle #decade

Police departments no longer have to pay overtime or divert resources from other projects to find out where an individual goes - all they have to do is place a tracking device on someone's car or ask a cell phone company for that individual's location history and the technology does the work for them. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#car #cell #cell phone #company #departments