Freedome Quotes

“The cliche about prison life is that I am actually integrated into it, ruined by it, when my accommodation to it is so overwhelming that I can no longer stand or even imagine freedom, life outside prison, so that my release brings about a total psychic breakdown, or at least gives rise to a longing for the lost safety of prison life. The actual dialectic of prison life, however, is somewhat more refined. Prison in effect destroys me, attains a total hold over me, precisely when I do not fully consent to the fact that I am in prison but maintain a kind of inner distance towards it, stick to the illusion that ‘real life is elsewhere’ and indulge all the time in daydreaming about life outside, about nice things that are waiting for me after my release or escape. I thereby get caught in the vicious cycle of fantasy, so that when, eventually, I am released, the grotesque discord between fantasy and reality breaks me down. The only true solution is therefore fully to accept the rules of prison life and then, within the universe governed by these rules, to work out a way to beat them. In short, inner distance and daydreaming about Life Elsewhere in effect enchain me to prison, whereas full acceptance of the fact that I am really there, bound by prison rules, opens up a space for true hope.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“He felt, though, that if love was the desire to possess someone, it was in reality the poor substance of self-love. It seemed to him that a greater, truer love was the desire to open a cage - be it made of iron bars or the bones of tormented injustice - and set the nightbird free.”
― Robert R. McCammon, Speaks the Nightbird

“What is the difference between yesterday occupation & today's freedom.”
― Islam A. ElDegwi

“Losing yourself doesn't sound like burdensome striving, but that's the lie the Enemy wants you to believe. That IS the false gospel of this generation: that we can save ourselves through ourselves. That with enough practice, enough resources, and enough work, a perfectly executed version of your life is accessible. This generation is declaring, "Be your own boss and make yourself happy. Save yourself!"... It baffles me that our culture is obsessed with the contradictions of this ideology and equates them with freedom.”
― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace