By liberty then we can only mean a power of acting...

By liberty then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; this is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may.

— David Hume

2 June

Notes

Here, then, is the summation of the matter. We had thought, the decent people in all countries, that government by the people under democracy, and with it equal liberty for all, were things definitely achieved. We were forgetting the long struggle and the heroic sacrifice that gave them to the world. Bygone tyrannies and cruelties were forgotton in the nearer perspective of lesser things. Hence came a kind of inertia - a little slumber, a little sleep, a little folding of the hands to sleep - and thereby a creeping paralysis that made us almost let freedom slip from our hands. — Stephen Leacock

The subjection of men to government will always continue as long as patriotism exists, for every ruling power rests on patriotism — on the readiness of men to submit to power. — Leo Tolstoy

Economic policy in many western countries is effectively determined by a process of trade off between big unions, big business and the government. What passes for consensus are deals which accommodate the special interests of union bosses, big economic conglomerates, pressure groups and the ideological goals of the government. The public is led to believe that decisions are made by public consensus whereas the truth is that they only reflect the interests of the powerful and the influential.

By liberty I mean assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. — Lord Acton

The root of all well-ordered social action is a sentiment of justice, which at once insists on personal freedom and is solicitous for the like freedom of others; and there at present exists but a very inadequate amount of this sentiment. — Herbert Spencer

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. — John Stuart Mill

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre. - Frank Zappa

Freedom is the right to say two plus two make four. If granted, all else follows. - George Orwell

Liberal democracy is moving towards a form of corporate dictatorship. This is an historic shift and the media must not be allowed to be its facade. But itself made into a popular burning issue and subjected to direct action. That great whistle-blower Tom Pane warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and the ideas of truth then it was time to storm what he called the ‘Bastille of Words’. That time is now. — John Pilger

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will. — Thomas Carlyle

What is Freedom

Notes