Freedom
170 quotes
Biography
"The odd thing about freedom is how, at the extreme, it comes to resemble its opposite. Think of gridlock on the freeway: everybody free to drive but nobody able to move."
"Berdyaev makes an important distinction between two senses of the world freedom, between freedom as a means and freedom as an end. By the first we mean freedom to direct one's own life, to choose between good and evil as one understands them; by the second the freedom which consists in liberation from one's lower nature for the service of what is highest and best. As Berdyaev puts it, we mean by one and the same word "either that initial and irrational liberty which is prior to good and evil and determines their choice, or else that intelligent freedom which is our final liberty in truth and goodness.""
"Marx regards labor - working with the material world - as the primary domain in which we should realize our freedom in autonomously realizing ourselves as individuals, as members of the human species, and as in community with others. When we can fully identify with the product and process of labor, its consequences for self and others, when there is mutual recognition and affirmation of the value of these consequences - that the workers have satisfied others' needs for the others' sakes, and the others manifest their appreciation of that fact - and all of this is freely willed, then labor is unalienated, and hence free. Failure of any of these conditions entails that we are engaged in alienated labor. Alienated labor is labor that we can't identify with or affirm as an expression of our autonomy. It is unfree labor."
"Make yourself known as a philosopher, that is a free man."
"[...] legal curbs on corporate freedoms are needed to protect citizen's freedom."
"We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."
"Liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom."
"Freedom, like any other virtue, does not exist in a vacuum. It must be worked and practiced to exist at all. And like any other virtue, it imposes upon those who would have it the unpleasant tasks of discipline and sacrifice."
"Once you have caught a glimpse of freedom or experienced a bit of self-determination, you can't go back to old routines that were established under a racist, capitalist regime."
"The individual who tries to plot his position by reference to our society finds no fixed points, but only the vaunted absence of them, "freedom" and "opportunity"; freedom for what, opportunity to do what, is nowhere indicated. The only positive he is given is "get and spend" ("get and spend—if you can" from the Right, "get and spend—you deserve it" from the Left) and he did not need society to tell him that.""
"The cause of freedom is the cause of God!"
"There are two kinds of freedom to be found in our world: the freedom of desires, and the freedom from desires. Our modern Western culture only recognizes the first of these, freedom of desires. It then worships such a freedom by enshrining it at the forefront of national constitutions and bills of human rights. One can say that the underlying creed of most Western democracies is to protect their people's freedom to realize their desires, as far as this is possible. It is remarkable that in such countries people do not feel very free. The second kind of freedom, freedom from desires, is celebrated only in some religious communities. It celebrates contentment, peace that is free from desires. It is remarkable that in such abstemious communities like my monastery, people feel free."
"Partial freedom seems to me the most invidious form of slavery."
"Freedom is not the possession of one race. We know with equal certainty that freedom is not the possession of one nation."
"Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity — and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations."
"Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free."
"We can't impose freedom, but we can eliminate roadblocks to freedom, and to allow free societies to develop."
"Freedom is a universal human desire... and a force for peace and prosperity in the world... We hear you and we support your cause."
"Freedom brings responsibility. Independence from the state does not mean isolation from each other. A free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors, and the strong protect the weak, and public policies promote private compassion. As President, I tried to act on these principles every day. That wasn’t always easy, and it certainly wasn’t always popular. One of the benefits of freedom is that people can disagree."
"A man is free when he sees clearly the fulfillment of his being and is thus capable of making the envisioned self a reality."
"The excesses are not abnormalities but are exactly how we would expect unregulated markets to work, especially when capital has the law and politics on its side. Monopolies can charge a high price when consumers (once known as patients) do not react or when they move to another provider, and thus an unconscious roadside casualty is the perfect victim. In retrospect it is not so surprising that free markets, or at least free markets with a government that permits and encourages by the rich, should produce not equality but an extractive elite that predates on the population at large. Utopian rhetoric about freedom has led to an unjust social dystopia, not for the first time. Free markets with rent seekers are not he same as competitive markets; indeed, they are often exactly the opposite."
"In order for men to become indignant or to admire, they must be conscious of their own freedom and the freedom of others."
"As for us, whatever the case may be, we believe in freedom."
"Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence. The man who seeks to justify his life must want freedom itself absolutely and above everything else."
"To will oneself free is to effect the transition from nature to morality by establishing a genuine freedom on the original upsurge of our existence."