#lit

We need to understand the more government spends, the more freedom is lost...Instead of simply debating spending levels, we ought to be debating whether the departments, agencies, and programs funded by the budget should exist at all. ↗

— Ron Paul

#freedom

The key to entering into the Divine Exchange is never our worthiness but always God’s graciousness. Any attempt to measure or increase our worthiness will always fall short, or it will force us into the position of denial and pretend, which produces the constant perception of hypocrisy in religious people. To switch to an “economy of grace” is a switch that is very hard for humans to make. We base almost everything in human culture on achievement, performance, accomplishment, an equal exchange value, or some kind of worthiness gauge. I call it meritocracy. Unless one personally experiences a dramatic and personal breaking of the rules of merit (forgiveness or undeserved goodness), it is almost impossible to disbelieve or operate outside of its rigid logic. This cannot happen theoretically or abstractly. It cannot happen “out there” but must be known personally “in here. ↗

— Richard Rohr

#equality

Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation." "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#inspirational #literature #freedom

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#government #politics #freedom

They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path. If there is a path it is someone else's path and you are not on the adventure. ↗

— Joseph Campbell

#life #path #life

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." [Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950] ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#dissent #freedom-of-speech #opposition #politics #repression

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. ↗

— Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

#beat #bitter #days #freedom #head

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. ↗

— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

#democracy #freedom #history #hope #individualism

You have to choose your future regrets. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#future #life #philosophy-of-religion #rationality #wisdom

I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me. ↗

— Mira Sorvino

#becomes #body #choosing #i #indelible