For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
- Nelson Mandela (1918- ) , Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1993
Archive for the 'free fridays' Category
freedom is not merely casting off one’s chains
Published November 2, 2007 free fridays Leave a CommentIn a cloudless night sky, the full moon,
“The Lord of the Stars” is about to rise…
The face of my compassionate lord, Padmasambhava,
Draws me on, radiating its tender welcome.
My delight in death is far, far greater than
the delight of traders at making vast fortunes at sea,
Or the lords of the gods who vaunt their victory in battle;
Or of those sages who have entered the rapture of perfect absorption.
So just as a traveler who sets out on the road when the time has come to go,
I will not remain in this world any longer,
But will go to dwell in the stronghold of the great bliss of deathlessness.
- Longchen Rabjampa (1308 – 1364), his last testament
“Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”
- His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama (1935 – ), Nobel Peace Laureate, 1989
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
“Freedom is not caprice, but room to enlarge.”
Cyrus Augustus Bartol (1813–1900)
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
35th President of the United States (1961-1963)
Freedom is never really won — you earn it and win it in every generation.
– Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006
Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare.
- Dorothy Thompson, 1893-1961
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity.
“It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.”
- Karl Popper, 1902-1994, On Freedom, 1958
