Quotes About Freedom Of Thinking

#1. The unrestrained freedom of thinking and of openly making known one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens and is by no means worthy of favor and support.

Pope Gregory XVI

#2. The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

John Adams

#3. Access to information and freedom of access to it may seem like a fundamental right but there are many people who think, rightly or wrongly, it is for your own good that it is hidden.

Alberto Gonzales

#4. The 80s were deranged. People had all these liberties all of a sudden and all the freedom in the world, the Less Than Zero sort of themes that came from that period, I think electronic music works very well for that whole idiom.

Sam De Jong

#5. Write without fear and put down on your paper what you think, without thinking of what you must say

Louisa Catherine Adams

#6. Freedom of discussion is in England little else than the right to write or say anything which a jury of twelve shopkeepers think it expedient should be said or written.

A. V. Dicey

#7. [M]an is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.

John Locke

#8. Our spirit requires freedom in every area of our lives. The barriers that stop our soul from free expression are doubt, guilt, resentment, and thoughts of lack or limitation.

Hina Hashmi

#9. The freedom to share one's insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.

Karl Friedrich Bahrdt

#10. Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#11. What is in the minds of the majority the society is unmindful of.

Amit Abraham

#12. When you are strong and healthy, You never think of sickness coming, But it descends with sudden force, Like a stroke of lightning. When involved in worldly things, You never think of death's approach; Quick it comes like thunder, Crashing round your head.

Milarepa

#13. Nothing can compare to creating characters and worlds out of thin air with your friends and making a book exactly the way you think it should be made, pure creative freedom, purity of intention, with no boundaries.

Rick Remender

#14. We have the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast. But in the name of freedom, people have done a lot of damage. I think we have to build a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast in order to counterbalance. Because liberty without responsibility is not true liberty. We are not free to destroy.

Nhat Hanh

#15. I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

#16. I think the universities have co-opted the intellectual, by and large. But there is an emerging intellectual set coming out of Washington think tanks now. There are people who are leaving the universities and working for the government or in think tanks, simply looking for freedom.

Richard Rodriguez

#17. All ran to meet their chains thinking they secured their freedom, for although they had enough reason to feel the advantages of political establishment, they did not have enough experience to foresee its dangers.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#18. I am proud to work with the fossil fuel industry. I think it has historically done a horrible job of educating the public and I think my ideas will help it make a better case for freedom.

Alex Epstein

#19. I think it's a bill that puts a high priority on religious freedom and recognizes that as a part of the balance.

Asa Hutchinson

#20. I don't think of myself as being particulary a subversive writer, but I like to think that my work could afford someone else, the extra degree of freedom that I found when I first found science fiction.

William Gibson

#21. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.

Sam Harris

#22. I have no doubt about it. I think this is a part of the nature of man, a desire for freedom, for dignified life.

Judy Woodruff

#23. When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

John Adams

#24. We understand the concerns that people have with not only protecting our values, but our privacy interests as well. We think that the USA Freedom Act was a good resolution of that.

Barack Obama

#25. You think that if you blame, you will then be free of those problems, but blame cements you to your problems.

Bryant McGill

#26. I think the people that enjoyed Freedom will love this one; and I actually think some of the unique musical twists this project is taking will open it up to a whole new audience as well.

Michael W. Smith

#27. What a tiresome place America would be if freedom meant we all had to think alike or be the same color or wear the same gray flannel suit! That road leads to the conformity of the graveyard!

John Oliver Killens

#28. I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

Bertrand Russell

#29. One cannot achieve peace without realizing justice, realize justice without seeking out the truth, seek out the truth without practicing freedom. So living and thinking free is the root of achieving peace in our world.

Sami Al-Arian

#30. There was a huge lack of freedom in communist regimes, but at least they had humanity at the center of their thinking.

Alexis Tsipras

#31. There's very little money and very little freedom in doing it [webshows] for a major corporation. Doing things independantly is and always will be better I think, due to the recalcitrance of stubborn network hands.

Michael Cera

#32. Anxiety, and the physical symptoms it causes, is merely fog along the path of independence and discovery.

Charles F. Glassman

#33. The personal freedom to think & feel & speak authentically & to be conscious of so doing is the quality that distinguishes us as human.

Rollo May

#34. Keeping it real" isn't just a matter of facing up to harsh facts. It also includes opening up to the plethora of possibilities that offer us ways of impacting the world in spite of adversity.

T.K. Coleman

#35. What's great is that a lot of us are playing so against type in this, and it's awesome. All of the writers put faith in the fact that we know what we're doing. We have creative freedom, and it's awesome. I think it all worked out. Everybody on the show is so good.

Laura Prepon

#36. It's time that I stop referring to myself, thinking about myself, planning for myself, according to the gridlines and the timelines and the guidelines of people. I will expand in this universe, I will not stay on the lines nor within the lines written by this world.

C. JoyBell C.

#37. People can get crazier as they get older. I can just be weird whenever I want, and there's the freedom of not caring what people think.

Candice Bergen

#38. Too many people - some of them judges - seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for what you have said. If you believe that, try insulting your boss when you go to work tomorrow. Better yet, try insulting your spouse before going to bed tonight.

Thomas Sowell

#39. To those who think that the law of gravity interferes with their freedom, there is nothing to say.

Lionel Tiger

#40. I think future generations will see the invention of the Internet as having been as important as the invention of the printing press. It's the democratizing tool of all tools. As long as no one can control the flow of information, then freedom always has a chance.

Marianne Williamson

#41. I think part of making movies is dealing with restrictions of freedom and budget. I'd rather deal with restrictions of budget. It's better to feel free within any budget.

Guillermo Del Toro

#42. I think both freedom of religion and freedom of expression are both fundamental human rights, everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what Pope Francis thinks for the common good ... we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending.

Pope Francis

#43. Anti-democracy ... is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.

Harry Belafonte

#44. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.

C. Vann Woodward

#45. My father has never once asked me a question, any question. There's a freedom that came from that. It allowed me to create my own way of thinking.

Douglas Coupland

#46. I think this conflict [against terrorism] is going to require a suspension of freedom and rights unlike anything we have ever seen, at least since World War II.

Marlin Fitzwater

#47. I think everyone on the planet is a fan of a painting because everyone is a fan of visual stimulation, but I've had freedom in the world [of painting] because I've kept it to myself.

Scott Avett

#48. People who think of children's nudity as a tool don't need freedom of expression.

Agnes Chan

#49. There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it

William Wallace

#50. I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

Margaret Chase Smith

#51. You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

Charlton Heston

#52. If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems we're told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast.
(History Will Teach Us Nothing)

Sting

#53. Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.

Voltaire

#54. If you are committed, you can select your thoughts and thereby shape your life here on earth into something spectacular. The alternative is to give up this freedom and live a life of mediocrity dominated by uncertainty and suspense.

Tommy Newberry

#55. We have heard much of the phrase, peace and friendship. This phrase, in expressing the aspiration of America, is not complete. We should say instead, peace and friendship, in freedom. This, I think, is America's real message to the rest of the world.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#56. We're not so free that we don't have to listen to rules, and laws, and regulations. Those are important. But the spirit, the freedom of the spirit, that's what I think of American Dream, that we are free here to do what we want to do, what we set out to do.

Martha Stewart

#57. If you think there is freedom of the press in the United States, I tell you there is no freedom of the press ... They come out with the cheap shot. The press should be ashamed of itself. They should come to both sides of the issue and hear both sides and let the American people make up their minds

Bill Moyers

#58. I think a lot of people are afraid of freedom. They want their lives to be controlled, to be put into a box ... Why should someone put a limit on how much fun I can have, how much I can accomplish?

Drew Carey

#59. Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? Free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are perfect slaves.

Henry David Thoreau

#60. I think China's view of freedom has to do with material wealth and modernity, and the Dalai's Lama view of freedom is liberation in the Buddhist sense, which is freedom from ignorance and freedom from suffering.

Pico Iyer

#61. Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.

Tim Fargo

#62. There are always a few, Claire, who like being told what to do instead of being required to think. And those are the ones you should fear. That goes equally for humans, I'm afraid. Critical thinking has become a sadly rare skill these days.

Rachel Caine

#63. God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.

Marianne Williamson

#64. There's a certain kind of existential freedom that comes to people who realize that all the things that they hold onto and that they think define them, once they're gone, there's this new freedom to determine the way you're going to live your life.

Donal Logue

#65. Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is entirely too secular. The fact that we have freedom of religion doesn't mean we need to try to have freedom from religion

William J. Clinton

#66. I think, just the exhilaration of flying. The freedom of the air. The freedom of flight. And you completely remove yourself from the world. And you can voluntarily remove yourself from all those ... everything that's near and dear to you. And you voluntarily return.

Nancy Bird Walton

#67. It think acceptance levels sort of swings back and forth. Like in the 60's there was a lot more freedom with sex that doesn't exist today. Language has gotten pushed a bit farther and violence is way far out.

Bob Saget

#68. When a prisoner sees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to think where he shall get his dinner outside.

George Bernard Shaw

#69. I am prepared to accept from others their own version of reality. I think it is a basic freedom really, to create one's own reality from whatever truths are available.

Josephine Hart

#70. I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.

George Carlin

#71. When we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom; we think even the noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping up our change.

George Eliot

#72. Mathematics is not the rigid and rigidity-producing schema that the layman thinks it is; rather, in it we find ourselves at that meeting point of constraint and freedom that is the very essence of human nature.

Hermann Weyl

#73. I prefer a positive view of freedom, drawing on another tradition of political thinking that goes all the way back to the ancient Greek polis.

David Blunkett

#74. Men=earthbound creatures, living in communities, endowed with common sense, sensus communis, a community sense; not autonomous, needing each other's company even for thinking ("freedom of the pen")=first part of the Critique of Judgment: aesthetic judgment.

Hannah

#75. Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy.

Wendell Berry

#76. Long term thinking and planing enhances short term decision making. Make sure you have a plan of your life in your hand, and that includes the financial plan and your mission.

Manoj Arora

#77. I argue that even as the war is framed in certain ways to control and heighten affect in relation to the differential grievability of lives, so war has come to frame ways of thinking multiculturalism and debates on sexual freedom, issues largely considered separate from foreign affairs.

Judith Butler

#78. There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.

Andrew Wiles

#79. But joint pressure from states like Germany, Italy and France could mean a move in this direction. Because something very fundamental is on the line: freedom of movement. I can't think of any common market that could function without it.

Paolo Gentiloni

#80. Intelligent thinking means an increment of freedom in action-an emancipation from chance and fatality. 'Thought' represents the suggestion of a way of response that is different from that which would have been followed if intelligent observation had not effected an inference as to the future.

John Dewey

#81. Actually, the suburbs are far more sinister places than most city dwellers imagine. Their very blandness forces the imagination into new areas. I mean, one's got to get up in the morning thinking of a deviant act, merely to make certain of one's freedom. It needn't be much; kicking the dog will do.

J.G. Ballard

#82. When circumstances feel as if they are turning surreal, like the current political situation. We can be guaranteed, our intuition will lead the way to the truth, as long as we don't live in a world of wishful thinking.

Anita B. Sulser PhD

#83. Average intelligence loves blinders, which facilitate an even trot; but a brisker and livelier intelligence desires uncertainty, risk, a play of more deceptive and elusive forces ... where one can preserve flight, pride, joke, confession, rapture, play, struggle.

Witold Gombrowicz

#84. There is a certain freedom in giving up all hope. One is no longer bound by the cords of dread or fear; you simply move toward the inevitable without thinking on the consequences.

Rachel Caine

#85. I definitely didn't fit in perfectly to the school system. I was raised with such freedom of speech and thinking.

Julie Delpy

#86. If you think that you are bound, you remain bound; you make your own bondage. If you know that you are free, you are free this moment. This is knowledge, knowledge of freedom. Freedom is the goal of all nature.

Swami Vivekananda

#87. I think there is a danger that an environmental crisis can be used in precisely the same way as the terrorist threat can be used in terms of giving up freedom.

Naomi Klein

#88. I love my complexion, but like so many of us, in the early years at primary school, I grew up thinking that my dark skin wasn't a great thing. I've found freedom in music and songwriting, which has given me a freedom in how I present myself. I'm glad I've got makeup to celebrate that with.

Laura Mvula

#89. Town after town has but one newspaper or one radio station. It is often owned by Murdoch. Yes, we don't have as much freedom of the press as we think we have - although the traditional freedom of speech is strongly rooted in American culture.

Pete Seeger

#90. Sunglasses are more useful to a blind man than freedom of speech is to a man who does not think for himself.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

#91. I feel the freedom of being able to find comedy in the darkest moments because it makes it way more interesting, I think. Otherwise, you're just cruising down a path that's been traveled millions of times. It's cool to find the strange truth in those moments.

Kevin Durand

#92. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society.

John Dewey

#93. Freedom is a daring liberation.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#94. The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.

Sam Harris

#95. Prisons where people can't even work is the worst punishment you can think of. And I don't think we should put all convicts in such facilities where people are deprived of their freedom.

Vladimir Putin

#96. I think the impacts of 9/11 on academic freedom vary greatly depending on locale and time (softening with the passage of time), and even within the same community, and likely within the same schools. This variability makes it difficult to offer generalized responses without accompanying caveats.

Richard A. Falk

#97. Disputes among natural philosophers are of use to science, as the quarrels of the great, and the clamors of the little, are necessary to freedom of thought and the advancement of learning.

Hal Hellman

#98. To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement

Thomas Jefferson

#99. When a people holds onto its language, it holds onto a semblance of freedom, like a man who holds onto his independence when he retains his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of a people.

Jose Rizal

#100. We praise the strength, the patience and the longing of the people who did not stop thinking of freedom and democracy in these dark times

Joachim Gauck