Being Free Quotes

“Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged that idea.
She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed.
She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.
She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying her best.
And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Anyone can possess, anyone can profess, but it is an altogether different thing to confess.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“I can only be free when the other people around me are free.”
― Jayman

“When enforcing our boundaries, first and foremost, we are caring for ourselves, but we are also helping others to have a clear understanding of what we consider acceptable behavior. We are reflecting back to them what is not acceptable and, therefore, providing them an opportunity to consider that information and make necessary changes.”
― Speers Peggi

“…it’s not the truth about others that will set you free, but the truth about yourself.”
― Louise Penny, A Rule Against Murder

“Peace can only be achieved by a contrite spirit, open communication and tolerance.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“I saw a lot of men die there. Most men. Do you know what killed them?”…”Despair,” said Finney. “They believed themselves to be prisoners. I lived with those men, ate the same maggot-infested food, slept in the same beds, did the same back-breaking work. But they died and I lived. Do you know why?” “You were free.” “I was free. Milton was right…the mind is its own place. I was never a prisoner. Not then, not now.”
― Louise Penny, A Rule Against Murder

“Being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligations but being able to love.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

“Reading and writing dangerous books lets me be who I can't be and say what I can't say in everyday life.”
― Carla H. Krueger

“To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

“The knowledge of his or her state of serfdom never set a slave free, though a good start it is. It is actually finding the way to be free is what does it. - On Freedom”
― Lamine Pearlheart

“Being free is all about letting go. Our culture acts like “allowing” a weakness, but try it and you’ll know it’s one of the most powerful things ever!

Just for today, see what happens if you let go: of expectations, of fear, of resentments, etc.

Imagine how light you’ll be without all that (old!) weight.”
― Kelly Corbet, BIG: the practice of joy

“You can be technically free but not really free. If you're concerned about being wiped out by a healthcare crisis [so you're not free to move freely through the world] or you're concerned that you may lose your job, you're not really free. [...]

Real liberty, realized liberty, is liberty you can act on.”
― Bret Weinstein

“During long cross-country wanders, you do glimpse that freedom of pure renunciation. When you walk for a long time, there comes a moment when you no longer know how many hours have passed, or how many more will be needed to get there; you feel on your shoulders the weight of the bare necessities, you tell yourself that’s quite enough – that really nothing more is needed to keep body and soul together – and you feel you could carry on like this for days, for centuries. You can hardly remember where you are going or why; that is as meaningless as your history, or what the time is. And you feel free, because whenever you remember the former signs of your commitments in hell – name, age, profession, CV – it all seems absolutely derisory, minuscule, insubstantial.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“Being free but deprived of the protections and precautions of freedom is a greater tragedy than slavery.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“The Earth is upside-down. We could fall to freedom / If we believed in it”
― Anthony Tao, We Met in Beijing