What is freedom? There is no such thing as absolute freedom!

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed have to wait forever.

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.

Freedom is never a done deal, nor is it a fixed notion.

We think freedom means that we can pursue all our desires. Real freedom is letting go of things not wanted, the unchecked desires that leas us to unwanted ends.

Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

Freedom is not free

saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.

Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.

(…) Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Freedom is the possibility of isolation... If you can't live alone, you were born a slave.

Complete freedom meant — no one knew. It was most readily defined in the negative: not this gap between the heaven promised in the new advertisements and the everyday satisfactions I can buy. Not the sense that when I leave my work for my family, and bring my family to a Sunday in the park, my leisure feels like work. Not this mad conviction that I’m a stranger in my own home town, that at work I feel like a machine, that in the park I feel like an advertisement, that at home I feel like a tourist.

Freedom: to walk free and own no superior

Freedom is to lose all illusions.