Freedom of will is the ability to do
gladly that which I must do.

Carl Jung
  
If some great Power would agree to make me think always what
is true and do what is right on condition of being turned into a
sort of clock, I would instantly close with the bargain.  The only
freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom
to do wrong I am ready to part with.

Thomas Henry Huxley

      
Freedom--no word was ever spoken that has held out
greater hope, demanded greater sacrifice, needed
more to be nurtured, blessed more the giver. . . or
came closer to being God's will on earth.

Omar N. Bradley
  

A superficial freedom to wander aimlessly here or there, to taste this or that, to
make a choice of distractions, is simply a sham.  It claims to be a freedom of
"choice" when it has evaded the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses.

Thomas Merton
    

Freedom is as frightening now as it was thousands of years ago.
It will always require a willingness to sacrifice what is
most familiar for what is most true.  To be free we may need
to act from integrity, on trust, sometimes for a very long
time.  Few of us will reach our promised land in a day.  But
perhaps the most important part of the story is that God
does not delegate this task.   Whenever anyone moves
toward freedom, God Himself is there.

 Rachel Naomi Remen

    

I fear nothing.  I hope for nothing.  I am free.

Nikos Kazantzakis
   
 

  

No person is free until he or she is free at the center.  When we let go
there, we are free indeed.  When the self is renounced, then
one stands utterly disillusioned, apart, asking for nothing.  If anything
comes to us, it is all sheer gain.  Then life becomes one constant surprise.

E. Stanley Jones
  

I call that mind free which is
not passively framed by outward
circumstances, which is not swept
away by the torrents of events,
which is not the creature of
accidental impulse, but which bends
events to its own improvement,
and acts from an inward spring,
from immutable principles which
it has deliberately espoused.

W.E. Channing

  
The price of freedom is responsibility, but it is a bargain, because freedom is priceless.

Hugh Downs

People are freest when they are most
unconscious of freedom.

David H. Lawrence

Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive,
and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.

Peace Pilgrim
You are already free.  You only have to know and realize this truth.

Sivananda

Freedom breeds freedom.  Nothing else does.

Anne Roe
  
Freedom is not a goal, it is the supreme awareness of who you are.
Freedom is found once all concepts are thrown away, and one stands
alone in the present moment to find the depth of meaning inherent in their spirit.

A Spiritual Warrior
  

Only on the surface of things have I ever trod the beaten path.
So long as I could keep from hurting anyone else, I have lived,
as completely as it was possible, the life of my choice.
I have been free. . . . I have done the work I wished to do
for the sake of that work alone.

Ellen Glasgow
  

   

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Freedom does not mean that right to do whatever we please,
but rather to do as we ought.  The right to do whatever we
please reduces freedom to a physical power and
forgets that freedom is a moral power.

Fulton J. Sheen
   

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as
a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact
rather than as an ultimate goal.  It is the beginning of wisdom
to be amazed at the fact of our being free.

Abraham Joshua Heschel
   

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not
wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in
the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the
voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.

Pope John Paul III
  
   
Let your cry be for free souls rather than for freedom.
Moral liberty is the only important liberty.

Joseph Joubert
  

The price of freedom is to allow freedom.
Very few people are willing to pay the price.

Leonard Jacobson
   

Everyone talks about freedom.  All around the world different people,
different races,  different countries are fighting for freedom.  But what
is freedom?  In America we speak of living in a free country.  But
are we really free?  Are we free to be who we really are?  The answer
is no, we are not free.  True freedom has to do with the human
spirit--it is freedom to be who we really are.
Who stops us from being free?  We blame the government, we blame the
weather, we blame our parents, we blame religion, we blame God.
Who really stops us from being free?  We stop ourselves.

Don Miguel Ruiz
   

   

I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood
considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door
of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained
the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that
institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood
and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded
at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never
thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there
was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more
difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free
as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined,
and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.

Henry David Thoreau
  
   
A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything,
which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being
or worship and which does not seek its own interest in anything
but is always immersed in God's most precious will. . . . There is no
work which men and women can perform, however small, which does
not draw from this its power and strength.

Meister Eckhart
   

Freedom is not worth having if it does not
include the freedom to make mistakes.

Mohandas Gandhi
   
   

As long as you are free, you are free to select and choose alternatives,
provided that you are willing to accept the responsibility for being free.
And after you've tried your alternatives, and they don't work as you
would wish, don't blame me.  Blame your choice.  Try another alternative.

Leo Buscaglia
   
    
The best way to be more free is to grant more freedom to others.

Carlo Dossi
    

Freedom is not simply the circumstances that allow you to do whatever you want.
Freedom is not only the opportunity to choose.  Freedom is the strength of
character to choose and to do what is right.  With that in mind, our age is not an
age of freedom, but an age of slavery.  It is subtle, but it is real.  The foundation
of freedom is not power or choice.  Freedom is upheld not by men and women
in government, but by people who govern themselves.

Matthew Kelly
    
    

 I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

Simone de Beauvoir
   
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Jean-Paul Sartre
   

Freedom means choosing your burden.

Hephzibah Menuhin
   
Those whose joy is within, whose pleasure is within, and whose light is within, that devotee, being well established in the Supreme, attains to absolute freedom.

The Bhagavad Gita

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul,
except to walk free and own no superior?

Walt Whitman

I have only one purpose:  to make people free, to urge them towards freedom, to help them to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give them eternal happiness, will give them the unconditional realization of Self.

J. Krishnamurti
    

   
Stanzas on Freedom

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! True freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

 They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think:
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

James Russell Lowell 
   

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Total freedom is never what one imagines and, in fact, hardly exists.
It comes as a shock in life to learn that we usually only exchange
one set of restrictions for another.  The second set, however, is
self-chosen, and therefore easier to accept.

 Anne Morrow Lindbergh
   

Every good teacher and every good parent has somehow learned to
negotiate the paradox of freedom and discipline.  We want our
children and our students to become people who think and live
freely, yet at the same time we know that helping them become
free requires us to restrict their freedom in certain situations.

Parker J. Palmer
The Courage to Teach
   

Freedom is so much a part of the human makeup that it is not too far-fetched
to say that an un-free human being is in a sense a contradiction in terms.  The
ideal society is one in which its members enjoy their freedom to be human
freely, provided they do not thereby infringe the freedom of others unduly.
We are meant to have freedom of association, of expression, of movement,
the freedom to choose who will rule over us and how.  We are made for this.
It is ineluctable.  It cannot ultimately be eradicated, this yearning for freedom
to be human.  This is what tyrants and unjust rulers have to contend with.  They
cannot in the end stop their victims from being human.  Their unjust regimes must
ultimately fail because they seek to deny something that cannot be denied.

Desmond Tutu
Believe
   

   
I know I was being prepared for the pilgrimage when I made certain
choices. For instance, I was in grammar school when I was offered
cigarettes from a package, which I did not smoke but my friends did.
In high school I was offered all kinds of alcohol, which I did not drink
but my friends did. Then just after my student days I was faced with
a kind of test because all my friends at that time used both alcohol
and tobacco. There was such a push towards conformity in those days--
they call it peer pressure now -- that they actually looked down on me
because I didn't do these things. And gathered in someone's living
room I said to them, "Look, life is a series of choices and nobody can
stop you from making your choices, but I have a right to make
my own choices, too. And I have chosen freedom."

Peace Pilgrim
   

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny
to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!

Charles Dickens
Bleak House
   

Without total freedom, every perception, every objective regard, is twisted.
It is only the man who is totally free who can look and understand immediately.
Freedom implies really, doesn't it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely
to empty the whole content of the mind--that is real freedom. Freedom is not
mere revolt from circumstances, which again breeds other circumstances,
other environmental influences, which enslave the mind. We are talking about
a freedom that comes naturally, easily, unasked for, when the mind is
capable of functioning at its highest level.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
On Freedom
   

The free person is one who does not fear to go to the end of his or her thought.

Leon Blum
   

The freedom from something is not true freedom. The freedom
to do anything you want to do is also not the freedom I am
talking about. My vision of freedom is to be yourself.

Osho
Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself
   

Freedom is the basic condition for you to touch life, to touch the blue sky,
the trees, the birds, the tea, and the other person.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
   

   
If we come to understand that freedom is inescapable, that understanding
can serve us greatly in living a happy and productive life.  In the middle
of one of the most restrictive environments imaginable, Viktor Frankl
discovered this truth about freedom.  He learned that no matter where
life might take him, no matter how terrible the external conditions might
be, he still had the freedom of his own thoughts and attitudes.  He could
choose to see with the eyes of a free spirit.
   We may often give this inalienable freedom away by believing that our
parents, teachers, friends, employers, or whoever cause us to feel a certain
way.  However, when we truly understand that no one can make us think or
feel anything unless we give them permission, we begin to understand the
vastness of our freedom.  No person or circumstance has
the power to change that truth.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life
   

Freedom which has genuine meaning is more than a timeless
abstraction, more than an absence of restraints.

Helen M. Lynd
   

The free person is not one who defies the rules. . . but one who,
recognizing the compulsions inherent in his or her being, seeks
rather to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest each day's experience.

Bernard I. Bell