#free

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#freedom #freedom-of-thought #independence #freedom

I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled. ↗

— Scott Westerfeld

#prison #freedom

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#freedom #freedom-of-choice #hebrew #language #timshel

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#freedom-of-thought #independent-thought #skepticism #freedom

The ocean was the best place, of course. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, and yet a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched. ↗

— Ann Brashares

#freedom

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#freedom

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#life #personal-responsibility #freedom

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#morality #politics #wisdom #freedom

Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#religion #freedom

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. ↗

— Susan B. Anthony

#emancipation #women #freedom