Human Freedom Quotes

“I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.”
― Noam Chomsky

“Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“A higher understanding of human freedom, however, is inseparable from a definition of human nature. To be free is to be able to flourish as the kind of being one is, and so to attain the ontological good toward which one's nature is oriented; freedom is the unhindered realization of a complex nature in its proper end (natural and supernatural), and this is consummate liberty and happiness. The will that chooses poorly, then - through ignorance, maleficence, or corrupt desire - has not thereby become freer, but has further enslaved itself to those forces that prevent it from achieving its full expression. And it is this richer understanding of human freedom that provides us some analogy to the freedom of God. For God is infinite actuality, the source and end of all being, the eternally good, for whom mere arbitrary 'choice' - as among possibilities that somehow exceed his 'present' actuality - would be a deficiency, a limitation placed upon his infinite power to be God. His freedom is the impossibility of any force, pathos, or potentiality interrupting the perfection of his nature or hindering him in the realization of his own illimitable goodness, in himself and in his creatures. To be 'capable' of evil - to be able to do evil or to be affected by an encounter with it - would in fact be an incapacity in God; and to require evil to bring about his good ends would make him less than the God he is. The object of God's will is his own infinite goodness, and it is an object perfectly realized, and so he is FREE.”
― David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?

“Human freedom brings with it the burden of choice and of its consequences. As humankind is akin to claim for its own special privilege a certain unique destiny not afforded with equal measure to other organisms, so must it further—if paradoxically so—entertain the assumption that, in spite of this glorious determinism, there persists nonetheless a thread of free will—or, at the very least, some vague delusion thereof—woven seamlessly into the tapestry of collective experience. Of course, this conception that destiny is to be forged by one’s own hands more often engenders greater restriction than it does greater extension to the potential of human happiness.”
― Ashim Shanker, Sinew of the Social Species

“Education is discovering your full potential and flourishing that potential for the benefit of the humanity.”
― Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird

“When you stand up for someone's right, and work for those who are suffering, for those who are deprived, for those who are in hunger, and in poor health and try to uplift the standard of living for all people across the planet, the Universal blessings come to you.”
― Amit Ray, Freedom and Responsibility: Living on the Edge

“With the exponential improvement in technology, the destiny of humanity should move towards more collaboration, more generosity, more freedom, more caring and more fulfilling life for everyone, and not nuclear annihilation.”
― Amit Ray, Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth

“إن حرية الإرادة البشرية فوق الجدل وإلا سقط التكليف كله وإعتبر الوجود مهزلة !!”
― محمد الغزالي, نحو تفسير موضوعي لسور القرآن الكريم

“Organized nonviolent protest and creative positive politics are the two wings of democracy to bring real change and betterment in humanity.”
― Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power

“In this sense every serious choice has a tragicomic dimension. For it is impossible to be a human being without choosing, and it is impossible to choose without value denials, and it is impossible to deny values without guilt. That is a very simple though, but it forms the core definition of guilt: an awareness of significant value loss for which I know myself to be responsible. Guilt is the self-knowing of moral loss.”
― Thomas C. Oden, Guilt free

“GDP the measure that was invented in the manufacturing age is no longer valid. Gross compassion quotient (GCQ) will be the new measure for the new age. It will show the new light to the humanity.”
― Amit Ray, Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth