#freedom

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum." (Adlai E. Stevenson, 1900-1965, American Lawyer, Politician) ↗

— Adlai E. Stevenson II

#freedom

It has been said, 'the truth will make men free.' The truth alone has never made anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation. ↗

— Anton Szandor LaVey

#truth #freedom

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#freedom #gagged #living #more #nothing

Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now. ↗

— Joss Whedon

#fairness #feminism #freedom-of-choice #inspirational #truth

(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#freedom #futility #mankind #freedom

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. ↗

— James Madison

#freedom #president #religion #freedom

A complete sharing between two people is an impossibility and whenever it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a mutual agreement which robs either one member or both of his fullest freedom and development. But, once the realization is accepted that, even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky! ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#marriage #freedom

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them. ↗

— Idries Shah

#obsession #slavery #struggle-strength-character #freedom

…there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being. ↗

— Kate Chopin

#love #monotonous #freedom

I am evolving from being an animal,' he said. 'But it is going very, very slowly. Sometime I try to cry and laugh like other people, just to see if it feels like anything. Yet tears don't come. Laughter doesn't come. ↗

— Blaine Harden

#recovery #freedom