48 Quotes About Freedom That Will Leave You Unchained

November 11, 2024

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48 Quotes About Freedom That Will Leave You Unchained

Last Modified: November 11, 2024

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Imagine waking up without an alarm clock and starting the day with a clean slate, free from obligations or expectations from others. To some, this is the perfect representation of freedom. But to others, it’s something completely different. These quotes about freedom from famous thinkers will help you define what freedom means to you.

Blake Miner

I'm a social scientist and entrepreneur fascinated by the psychology of personal freedom and location-independent business. Since selling a portion of my small language learning startup in 2018, I've spent time across 4 continents consulting with SaaS and web3 companies and exploring different cultures.

I arrived at my new Airbnb in Medellin, Colombia to kick off a month of remote work.

The birdcage decoration on the coffee table caught my eye straight away.

As someone who has spent the past decade working to create a life on my own terms, there was a deeper, more symbolic meaning behind it for me.

Despite aspiring to freedom for so long, I realized I had never precisely defined what the term meant to me.

“What is my definition of freedom?” I asked myself.

I certainly spent a lot of time thinking about freedom, and aspired to achieve it. But I realized that freedom was a feeling I had experienced, and not something I’d spent time to characterize.

I put polls up on my social media with the intention of exploring the idea of freedom. I got more responses than I could have ever imagine. Apparently this was a hot topic.

As a result, I had several truly engaging philosophical conversations about self-employment, psychology, the nature of autonomy and kicking ass in life.

One thing was glaringly obvious: freedom is a subjective concept.

That’s why I put together this post.

Here’s a collection of quotes about freedom that can help us view the lofty concept from different perspectives and help us uncover our own definition.

1. Freedom Quotes About Time and Money

The “what is freedom?” question commonly brings up discussions related to time versus money. It makes sense. These are most often our biggest immediate restrictions to freedom.

In a job you trade your freedom and time for money.
Ken Poirot

Working because you want to, not because you have to is financial freedom.
Tony Robbins

Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.
Margaret Bonanno

Money gives you the freedom to do with your time what you want to do with it.
Richard Branson

2. Freedom Quotes About Autonomy

For others, freedom is more about autonomy—the need to feel like they have choices and are the source of their own actions.

Freedom – to walk free and own no superior.
Walt Whitman

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.
Mortimer Adler

What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, and own no superior?
Walt Whitman

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose – and commit myself to – what is best for me.
Paulo Coelho

Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
Epictetus

Freedom is the power to say no.
James Clear

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
Bertrand Russell

Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
Jose Marti

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.
Charlotte Brontë

No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free.
Buddha

3. Freedom Quotes About The Mind

Freedom often starts in the mind, and these quotes express that notion perfectly.

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
Voltaire

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Freedom begins between the ears.
Edward Abbey

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.
Viktor E. Frankl

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.
Epictetus

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
Virginia Woolf

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Voltaire

4. Freedom Quotes About Self Improvement

Freedom for some represents a chance to focus on bettering themselves, while for others it’s this very process of self-actualization that leads to freedom.

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.
Albert Camus

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
Sigmund Freud

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
Jean-Paul Sartre

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Vicktor Emil Frankl

There is only one decision you need to make: You are either working at your Freedom or you are accepting your bondage.
Robert Adams

i) Freedom Through Facing Fears

Freedom can also come from garnering the courage to step outside our comfort zones and away from security. It’s through facing our fears that we rid ourselves of them.

The secret to happiness is freedom…And the secret to freedom is courage.
Thucydides

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
Aristotle

Most will give up an acre of freedom for a closet of security.
Dr. Idel Dreimer

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H.L. Mencken

Freedom lies in being bold.
Robert Frost

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.
Pericles

ii) Freedom Quotes: Authenticity

It can be stifling to feel the need to wear a mask or hide behind a persona all the time. For many, freedom is found through finding out who you are authentically and acting accordingly.

The best freedom is being yourself.
Jim Morrison

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
John F. Kennedy

When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
Ralph Ellison

5. Freedom Quotes About Thinking Outside the Box

Don’t be afraid to be different. Freedom can be found through experimentation and trying things in new ways. Even when we fail, we become more resilient and move closer toward true freedom.

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
Rosa Luxemburg

Freedom is always associated with risk taking, whether it leads to it or comes from it.
Nassim Taleb

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Henry David Thoreau

6. Freedom Quotes About Non-Attachment to Objects

Others find freedom through minimalism or by giving up the hold that objects have on them.

It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand Russell

The secret of happiness is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
Socrates

It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.
Tyler Durden

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?
Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Current Definition of Freedom

F » Financially set
R » Reclaiming your time
E » Embracing your authentic self
E » Engaging in free thought
D » Defying fear
O » Owning your autonomy
M » Minimizing material attachment

Parting Words

These quotes show us that freedom is more complex than simply having more time or more money.

My idea of freedom has certainly evolved with time.

When I was a university student and working a job on the side, I would have killed for more time. But later when I was working a full-time job and hustling to work on my business during the evenings and weekends, it was money that represented freedom to me. I would have killed to be able to quit my job and start living my lifestyle design dream faster, working on projects I loved and having time to improve in all areas of my life.

What does freedom mean to you? Hopefully these quotes brought you one step closer to clarity.

Have any other quotes about freedom you’d add to the collection? Leave me a comment below.

P.S. If you liked this, you might also enjoy these related quote collections:

Originally published July 8, 2019. The date of the last significant edit is reflected at the top of the post.

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