the scriptorium

Sunday, January 25, 2004

Week 2: Freedom
I have often said (or if I didn't say it, I have thought it) that anything worthwhile that I have to say on a subject has probably already been said better by someone before me. In that spirit, I offer the thoughts of greater minds than mine in this compilation of quotes on the subject of freedom (with the occasional commentary, of course--you don't expect me to say nothing on the subject, do you?):

"Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God."
~Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
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"The freedom to share one's insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.
~Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740-1792)
This should be the "battle cry" of bloggers everywhere.
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"Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate."
~Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978)
Ditto above commentary.
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"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
~Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
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So long as faith with freedom reigns
And loyal hope survives,
And gracious charity remains
To leaven lowly lives;
While there is one untrodden tract
For intellect or will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still.
~Alfred Austin (1835-1913)
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"Freedom is the moment between sleep and waking before selfhood and the world return."
~Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
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"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
~Kris Kristofferson (b. 1936)
I included this just to see if anyone's paying attention, and because it's the song that jumped in my head when I first saw this week's topic. When you think about it, though, there's a kind of "Zen" about this lyric.
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"Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time."
~Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Again with the "Zen" thing. Actually, it kinda sounds like a Son of God I know.
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Psalm 119:45: I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
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2 Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
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Ephesians 3:12: In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
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Galatians 5:1: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
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James 1:25: But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
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Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
~Richard Lovelace (1618-1657?)
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Last but not least, I really like this last one--it's pithy and should be meditated on for a while.
"Words like 'freedom,' 'justice,' 'democracy' are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply."
~James Baldwin (1924-1987)