No man is free who cannot command himself.

Pythagoras  (582–507 BC)

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.  Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one.  Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

Buddha Gautama  (563–483 BC)

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

Sallust  (86–34 BC)

Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca  (4 BC – AD 65)

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca  (4 BC – AD 65)

He who is brave is free.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca  (4 BC – AD 65)

He is the free man whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside.

William Cowper  (1731–1800)

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Goethe  (1749–1832)

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

Abraham Lincoln  (1809–1865)

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.

Soren Kierkegaard  (1813–1855)

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

Albert Einstein  (1879–1955)

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.

Bruce Barton  (1886–1967)

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Eric Hoffer  (1902–1983)

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 Frankl  (1905–1997)

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

Hannah Arendt  (1906–1975)

Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.

Ronald Reagan  (1911–2004)