Douglass was an escaped slave who became one of the most charismatic and forceful leaders of the American abolition movement. As a young man he briefly embraced Christianity but soon abandoned it, observing that the religion did so little to soften the behavior of slave owners. At the age of 20 he made his daring escape. Here are two versions of a quotation attributed to him: I. Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet. 2. I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. According to Heschel's daughter Dr. Susanna Heschel: (http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Evox/0405/0404/heschel.html) ""When he came home from Selma in 1965, my father wrote, 'For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.""
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free...
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
A more likely explanation for the media turning a blind eye to the presentation is that they basically agree with it, and find nothing uncontroversial about its declaration that tech companies have abandoned the “American tradition” of free speech in favor of the “European tradition” of protecting everyone’s feelings.
But most of the mainstream “tech media” seems more interested in reviewing Google’s latest smartphone than the company’s candid acknowledgment that the masters of the digital universe have largely abandoned the internet’s founding principles of freedom and openness.
Almost all of us would agree that some restrictions on free speech are necessary. But few of us would agree on what those restrictions should be. Being a good censor — or at least, a more consistent censor — is within Google’s grasp. But being a politically neutral one is probably impossible.
and all you got to do is think it through you can't have love if you're not free if you're not free to choose your love it's not love at the point of a sword you can't have virtue at the point of the sword you have to be able to choose it it's not charity when Elizabeth Warren takes this guy's money and gives it to this guy it's charity when you reach into your pocket and say I would have liked to go to the movies but here's five bucks go buy yourself a burger that's charity that hurts that's hard everything else is just degrading
So the thing that really is poignant to me, and the thing that I want to get to is the fact that the Hong Kongers — desperate to preserve their freedom, under the gun with people being kidnapped and disappearing and laws creeping in there that are meant to erode their freedoms — are waving the American flag. And they're singing our "Star-Spangled Banner." They are waving the American flag. And this is — I mean this should move all of us. This should touch every single one of us, and remind us that when people look for freedom, when they are afraid of oppression, when they strive to become the one thing that all great people have to be — which is free — and all individuals want to be, which is free. And the only thing that gives nobility to charity the only thing that gives nobility to faith in God, the only thing that gives nobility to a person is if he chooses those things freely. Right, if you choose to believe you — don't believe at the edge of a sword because that has no legitimacy.
Each man is the smith of his own fortune.
“The difference between political power and any other kind of social power … is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. … The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury – the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.”
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Liberty is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
She dances to the songs in her head,speaks with the rhythm of her heart,and loves from the depths of her soul.
But God intends that His children should act according to the moral agency He has given them, “that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.”2 It is His plan and His will that we have the principal decision-making role in our own life’s drama. God will not live our lives for us nor control us as if we were His puppets, as Lucifer once proposed to do. Nor will His prophets accept the role of “puppet master” in God’s place. Brigham Young stated: “I do not wish any Latter Day Saint in this world, nor in heaven, to be satisfied with anything I do, unless the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ,—the spirit of revelation, makes them satisfied. I wish them to know for themselves and understand for themselves.”
A major reason why there is famine in some parts of the world is because evil men have used the vehicle of government to abridge the freedom that men need to produce abundantly.
We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.
Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, that to be crowded on a velvet cushion.
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
It is often argued that socialism is a secular version of Christianity, referring to Acts 2-5, which describes the early Christians as having “all things in common.” It is true that following Pentecost, Christians sold their possessions and property and shared the results with “any [that] might have need.” But there is a critical distinction between Christians and socialists: Jesus urged his followers to give up their possessions while socialists want to give away the possessions of others. St. Paul is sometimes quoted as saying that “money is the root of all evil.” What he actually wrote in a letter to Timothy was that “loveof money is the root of all kinds of evil.” His indictment, as the former AEI president Arthur Brooks has pointed out, was of an inordinate attachment to money.
But if you were asked, “How many victims of communism have there been?” You would probably hesitate and respond — “Five million? Twenty million? Fifty million?” Few of us would know the right answer: at least 100 million men, women, and children, more than all the deaths of all the major wars of the 20thcentury. Communism committed the great crime of the last century.
More secular sources about the consequential role of private property can be cited. In The Constitution of Liberty, Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek writes that the recognition of private property is “an essential condition for the prevention of coercion.” He quotes Lord Acton as saying that “a people averse to the institution of private property is without the first element of freedom” and Henry Maine as asserting: “Nobody is at liberty to attack [private] property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” In view of the alleged lack of individual liberty in classical Greece, writes Hayek, it deserves mention that in 5th century Greece the sanctity of the private home was so recognized that even under the rule of the “Thirty Tyrants,” a man could save his life by staying at home. The power of private property indeed.
The essential difference between the visions of Karl Marx and George Washington, aside from the question of human nature, is that in Marx’s socialist world there is a dictatorship of the Communist Party, while in a liberal democracy like the United States “We the People” tell the government what to do, the government does not tell the people what to do.
Free peoples who were once willing to give their lives for liberty can be persuaded very quickly to relinquish their liberties for a aquiet life.
A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself
“The only liberty to which we can make a claim upon society is the freedom to do as we please within the limits imposed by justice and that variant of circumstantial freedom that is the political liberty enjoyed by enfranchised citizens of a republic.”
“The constitution to which the citizen has given consent by exercising his suffrage provides for a decision by the vote of the majority. He has accepted the principle of majority rule and, having done so, the citizen has also accepted, in advance the result of majority rule, whether or not the voting places him in the majority or in an adversely affected minority.”
“Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people. And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.”
No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.
Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. 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.
It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man.
Move to your own drum, create your own rhythm. Step left if you want to, even if it's not right. Follow the hidden song only you can hear, begging you to dance - each move weaving together the lines of your life, the love of your heart, and the light of your soul.
What If There Is No Need To Change What if there is no need to change? No need to transform yourself Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise? How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different? What if the task is simply to unfold To become who you already are in your essential nature – Gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present? What if the question is not, Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be? But ‘why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?’ How would this change what you think you have to learn? What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying But by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practices That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold? How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today? What if you know that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world Will arise from deep within And guide you every time you simply pay attention And wait. How would this shape your stillness, your movement, Your willingness to follow this impulse To just let go And dance?
During any dance to which we surrender with joy, the brain loses its controlling power, and the heart takes up the reins of the body.
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.
Dance, when you are broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you are perfectly free. Struck, the dancers hear the tambourine inside them, as a wave turns the foam on its very top, begin. Maybe you don't hear that tambourine, all the tree leaves clapping time. Close the ears on your head that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes. There are other things to hear and see: dance, music and a brilliant city inside the soul.
Saying that America is exceptional is not, despite popular perceptions, the same as saying America is wholly superior and better than other countries. You could also say that America is unique from other countries, but saying it is exceptional means so much more. It’s a belief that this country’s laws and standards are different from other countries. America is exceptional because it is a singular standard of freedom and liberty in the world.
America’s founding has always been about its ambitions. The founders did not claim the country would be perfect, only that through freedom it may encourage greatness among its citizens. Yes, ugly things took place in our history by flawed and dishonest men. But if one looks at history fairly we see that the great leaders of our founding succeeded in creating a nation in which individual freedom became the pathway for unparalleled levels of achievement by its citizens.
American exceptionalism does not mean that people here are better than in other countries. It means our Constitution is exceptional. It gives all who live here the opportunity to succeed or fail in what they choose to do in life. This enlightened document inspires, uplifts, and encourages American citizens, both native-born and immigrant, to live better lives, dream bigger dreams, and work hard for themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens.
America was built on the eternal principle that all men are created equal and they have certain rights given to them by God. Because these rights are God-given, they cannot be taken away by man. This was a completely new concept in the world at that time. In every other society, the citizens’ rights came from men, such as a king or dictator.
Jesus’ leadership emphasized the importance of being discerning with regard to others, without seeking to control them. He cared about the freedom of his followers to choose. Even he, in those moments that mattered so much, had to choose voluntarily to go through Gethsemane and to hang on the cross at Calvary. He taught us that there can be no growth without real freedom. One of the problems with manipulative leadership is that it does not spring from a love of others but from a need to use them. Such leaders focus on their own needs and desires and not on the needs of others.
Awakening from mistaken belief that it’s something outside ourselves. It’s right here. More we trust, the more we can manifest it. But we must shed the skin of the trance we live in. Niche says, “If a snake cannot shed its skin, it perishes.†This means letting go of old identity, thoughts, beliefs, story. It is a risk- no way to shed skin without opening up vulnerability How am I holding on to this skin? Where am I closed, defended?
Stopping the endless pursuit of getting somewhere else is the perhaps most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.
These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: Tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to set proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has right [not only to tax but] ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever’ and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon the earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
The greatest glory of a freeborn people is to transmit that freedom to their children.
When she started letting go, her vision became clearer. The present felt more manageable and the future began to look open and full of bright possibilities. As she shed the tense energy of the past, her power and creativity returned. With a revitalized excitement, she focused on building a new life in which joy and freedom were abundant.