#reed

If you need a reason to get involved in world politics, all you need to do is watch a playground of children for awhile. Imagine a world that happy and free all the time, that vision is the future worth fighting for. ↗

— Laurance Kitts

#freedom #politics #vision #freedom

At this point we can finally see what's really at stake in our peculiar habit of defining ourselves simultaneously as master and slave, reduplicating the most brutal aspects of the ancient household in our very concept of ourselves, as masters of our freedoms, or as owners of our very selves. It is the only way that we can imagine ourselves as completely isolated beings. There is a direct line from the new Roman conception of liberty – not as the ability to form mutual relationships with others, but as the kind of absolute power of "use and abuse" over the conquered chattel who make up the bulk of a wealthy Roman man's household – to the strange fantasies of liberal philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Smith, about the origins of human society in some collection of thirty- or forty-year-old males who seem to have sprung from the earth fully formed, then have to decide whether to kill each other or begin to swap beaver pelts. ↗

— David Graeber

#law #philosophy #freedom

Take your place, then. Look at what happened from every side and consider all the other ways it could have gone. Consider, even, an Africa unconquered altogether. Imagine those first Portuguese adventurers approaching the shore, spying on the jungle’s edge through their fitted brass lenses. Imagine that by some miracle of dread or reverence they lowered their spyglasses, turned, set their riggings, sailed on. Imagine all who came after doing the same. What would that Africa be now? All I can think of is the other okapi, the one they used to believe in. A unicorn that could look you in the eye. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#alternative-histories #freedom #freedom

Freedom is not to defy, it is to co-exist. It is a challenge for the imagination ↗

— Ilyas Kassam

#freedom #imagination #freedom

Only with the closing of the eyes are we truly free. ↗

— Tyler J. Hebert

#imagination #life #meditation #spirituality #freedom

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#inspiration #liberty #political-philosophy #strength #tyranny

But the great artists like Michelangelo and Blake and Tolstoi--like Christ whom Blake called an artist because he had one of the most creative imaginations that ever was on earth--do not want security, egoistic or materialistic. Why, it never occurs to them. "Be not anxious for the morrow," and "which of you being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?" So they dare to be idle, i.e. not to be pressed and duty-driven all the time. They dare to love people even when they are very bad, and they dare not to try and dominate others to show them what they must do for their own good. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#art #creativity #freedom #love #peace

Freedom is...the right to write the wrong words. ↗

— Patti Smith

#inspirational #words #freedom

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going. ↗

— Harriet Tubman

#freedom

If [you're asked] what you think, tell. If you have a preference, voice it. If you have a question, ask it. If you want to cry, bawl. If you need help, raise your hand and jump up and down. ↗

— Kristin Richter

#inspiration #freedom