#freed

Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap—I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you. ↗

— John Irving

#freedom-of-choice #law #women #freedom

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the canidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy--to be followed by a dictatorship. ↗

— Alexander Fraser Tytler

#law #taxes #welfare #freedom

The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility. ↗

— Anaïs Nin

#fear #freedom #hypocrisy #literature #perversion

We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thing...not ideas, but the system; not freedom, but drill. We had joined up with enthusiasm and with good will; but they did everything to knock that out of us. ↗

— Erich Maria Remarque

#soldiers #war #freedom

No Statue of Liberty ever greeted our arrival in this country...we did not, in fact, come to the United States at all. The United States came to us. ↗

— Luis Valdez

#freedom #history #liberty #native-american #society

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs. ↗

— Nelson Mandela

#teaching #freedom

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fullfilment. you should be free indeed when your days are not without care nor your nights without a word and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked unbound. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#grief #strength #freedom

And I'm ill with the thought of your kiss, coffee-laced intoxicating on her lips... shut it out, I've got no claim on you now, I'm not allowed to wear you freedom down ↗

— A Fine Frenzy

#love #moving-on #freedom

I've been thinking of something your father said - that the true measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it. He was talking about freedom - fighting for liberty. But I believe 'tis the same for love as war. ↗

— Laura Frantz

#true-love #war #freedom

LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#empowerment #equality #freedom #happiness #husbands