Freedom Quotes
You should read these quotes. (But we won't force you to.)
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Freedom Quotes
These quotes brought to you by freedom of speech. Click on any freedom quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
"'Cause it's a Wednesday night, baby, and I'm alive."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."Source: 80 million United States Postage stamps | Author: Maya Angelou
"A little bit of Monica in my life..."Source: Mambo No 5 | Speaker: Lou Bega
"A whole new world."Source: Aladdin | Speaker: Aladdin and Princess Jasmine
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell
"All I do is think and blink."Source: I Dream of Jeannie | Speaker: Jeannie
"Am I original? Am I the only one? Am I sexual?"Source: "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" | Speaker: Backstreet Boys
"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Author: Stephen Chbosky
"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."Source: Gone with the Wind | Author: Margaret Mitchell
"As if!"Source: Clueless | Speaker: Cher Horowitz
"Attica! Attica!"Source: Dog Day Afternoon | Speaker: Sonny Wortzik
"Buongiorno, principessa!"Source: Life Is Beautiful | Speaker: Guido
"Burn!"Source: That '70s Show | Speaker: Kelso
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley
"But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"But you just gotta understand that that’s the way it is and keep on steppin'."Source: The Watsons Go to Birmingham | Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
"Butts."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher
"California girls, we're unforgettable."Source: "California Gurls" | Speaker: Katy Perry
"Come up and see me sometime."Source: She Done Him Wrong | Speaker: Lady Lou
"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid."Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey | Speaker: HAL 9000
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott
"Don't just fly, soar."Source: Dumbo | Speaker: Timothy Mouse
"Earn this. Earn it."Source: Saving Private Ryan | Speaker: Captain James Miller
"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."Source: 1896 Letter to Booker T. Washington | Author: George Washington Carver
"Excuse me while I kiss this guy."Source: "Purple Haze" | Speaker: Jimi Hendrix
"Frak!"Source: Battlestar Galactica | Speaker: Various characters
"Get up offa that thing and dance 'till you feel better!"Source: Get Up Offa That Thing | Speaker: James Brown
"Give me liberty, or give me death!"Source: Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 20, 1775 | Speaker: Patrick Henry
"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"Source: McCarthy Hearings | Speaker: Joseph Welch
"He ain't no drag—Papa's got a brand new bag."Source: Papa's Got a Brand New Bag | Speaker: James Brown
"Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! It's home from work we go!"Source: Heigh-Ho | Speaker: The Seven Dwarfs
"Hey sista, go sista…"Source: "Lady Marmalade" | Speaker: Robert Crewe and Kenny Nolan
"Hope is the thing with feathers—That perches in the soul"Source: Hope Is the Thing with Feathers | Author: Emily Dickinson
"How dreary — to be — Somebody!Source: I'm Nobody! Who are you? | Author: Emily Dickinson
How public — like a Frog —"
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."Source: The Diary of Anne Frank | Author: Anne Frank
"Hurt no living thing."Source: Hurt No Living Thing | Author: Christina Rossetti
"I came in like a wrecking ball"Source: "Wrecking Ball" | Speaker: Miley Cyrus
"I have been starved out, felt up, teased, stalked, threatened, and called Taylor Swift."Source: Orange Is the New Black | Speaker: Piper Chapman
"I have not yet begun to fight."Source: Spoken on September 23, 1779 | Speaker: Captain John Paul Jones
"I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom."Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | Author: Frederick Douglass
"I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged."Source: Shawshank Redemption | Speaker: Red
"I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it."Source: "Work It" | Speaker: Missy Elliot
"I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?"Source: "Bohemian Rhapsody" | Speaker: Queen
"I see a red door and I want it painted black."Source: Paint It Black | Speaker: The Rolling Stones
"I shot the sheriff"Source: I Shot the Sheriff | Speaker: Bob Marley
"I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
"I wanna run through the halls of my high school."Source: No Such Thing | Speaker: John Mayer
"I'm here to fight for truth and justice and the American Way."Source: Superman | Speaker: Superman
"I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain."Source: Singin' in the Rain | Speaker: Don Lockwood
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts."Source: "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" | Speaker: Danny Kaye
"I've got no strings to hold me down, to make me fret, or make me frown."Source: I've Got No Strings | Speaker: Pinocchio
"If you change your mind, I'm the first in line. Honey, I'm still free, take a chance on me."Source: Take a Chance on Me | Speaker: ABBA
"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."Source: Furman v. Georgia | Author: Thurgood Marshall
"In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."Source: The Third Man | Speaker: Harry Lime
"Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?"Source: A Clockwork Orange | Author: Anthony Burgess
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."Source: A Tale of Two Cities | Author: Charles Dickens
"It's going down. I'm yelling, "Timber!""Source: "Timber" | Speaker: Pitbull and Kesha
"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."Source: Unknown | Speaker: Ella Fitzgerald
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."Source: The Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."Source: The Social Contract | Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Mr. Christian!"Source: Mutiny on the Bounty | Speaker: Captain Bligh
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."Source: Speech to the House of Commons, August 20, 1940 | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent."Source: The annual convention of the California State Suffrage Association | Speaker: Susan B. Anthony
"Oh Philadelphia freedom, shine on me, I love you."Source: "Philadelphia Freedom" | Speaker: Elton John
"Oh, it's okay. I guess I wasn't meant to have a good life."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher
"Oh, the things you can find if you don't stay behind!"Source: On Beyond Zebra! | Author: Dr. Seuss
"One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them"Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Run, Forrest, run!"Source: Forrest Gump | Speaker: Jenny Curran
"School's out for summer!"Source: School's Out | Speaker: Alice Cooper
"Seize the moment. 'Cause tomorrow you might be dead."Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Speaker: Buffy Summers
"Shake it off."Source: Shake It Off | Speaker: Taylor Swift
"She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom!"Source: The Scarlet Letter | Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."Source: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | Speaker: Senator Padmé Amidala
"So, goodbye, yellow brick road."Source: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" | Speaker: Elton John
"Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation."Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr. | Author: Coretta Scott King
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."Source: Up from Slavery: An Autobiography | Author: Booker T. Washington
"Tell all the truth but tell it slant"Source: Tell all the truth but tell it slant— | Author: Emily Dickinson
"That's when you know you've found somebody really special. When you can just…comfortably share silence."Source: Pulp Fiction | Speaker: Mia Wallace
"The caged bird sings of freedom"Source: Caged Bird | Author: Maya Angelou
"The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting."Source: The Red Badge of Courage | Author: Stephen Crane
"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way"Source: On Liberty | Author: John Stuart Mill
"The party don't start 'til I walk in."Source: "TiK ToK" | Speaker: Ke$ha
"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall."Source: Libération | Speaker: Che Guevara
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it."Source: The Second Treatise on Civil Government | Author: John Locke
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."Source: Letter to Col. William S. Smith, November 13, 1787 | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."Source: Diggers (The Bromeliad Trilogy) | Author: Terry Pratchett
"The trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry."Source: The Trouble with Poetry | Author: Billy Collins
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."Source: A Farewell to Arms | Author: Ernest Hemingway
"there's a bluebird in my heart that/ wants to get out/ but I'm too tough for him"Source: Bluebird | Author: Charles Bukowski
"There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"Source: Braveheart | Speaker: William Wallace
"This is the people's war!"Source: Mrs. Miniver | Speaker: The Vicar
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."Source: Pennsylvania Assembly | Author: Benjamin Franklin
"Time for the charm bomb to explode."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher
"Tin roof...rusted!"Source: Love Shack | Speaker: The B-52's
"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"We are not makers of history; we are made by history."Source: Strength to Love | Author: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"We are two wild and crazy guys!"Source: Saturday Night Live | Speaker: The Festrunk Brothers
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us."Source: Speech at the Audubon Ballroom | Speaker: Malcolm X
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock—Plymouth Rock landed on us."Source: Malcolm X | Speaker: Malcolm X (played by Denzel Washington)
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."Source: Seduction of the Minotaur | Author: Anaïs Nin
"We must guard against […] unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."Source: Eisenhower's Farewell Address | Speaker: Dwight Eisenhower
"We shall never surrender."Source: We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech (June 1940) | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"We'll never be royals."Source: "Royals" | Speaker: Lorde
"We're on a mission from God."Source: The Blues Brothers | Speaker: Elwood Blues
"We've got a situation."Source: Jersey Shore | Speaker: Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino
"We've got to fight until we overcome."Source: Ballot or the Bullet | Speaker: Malcolm X
"Well-behaved women rarely make history."Source: Marilyn Monroe | Author: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"When in the course of human events…"Source: Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"When your man wanna get buckwild…"Source: "Hit 'Em Up Style" | Speaker: Blu Cantrell
"Where are you going in those Keds?"Source: Girls | Speaker: Charlie Dattolo and Ray Ploshansky
"Wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there."Source: The Grapes of Wrath | Speaker: Tom Joad
"Wrapped up like a douche..."Source: Blinded by the Light | Speaker: Manfred Mann
"Yas queen!"Source: Broad City | Speaker: Ilana Wexler
"Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirate's life for me! We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot!"Source: Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) | Speaker: Pirates
"You can call me green bean."Source: "Royals" | Speaker: Lorde
"You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not."Source: My Sister's Keeper | Author: Jodi Picoult
"You know it don’t take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?"Source: The Glass Menagerie | Author: Tennessee Williams
"You know my hips don't lie."Source: Hips Don't Lie | Speaker: Shakira
"You know, Billy. We blew it."Source: Easy Rider | Speaker: Wyatt
"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith