Famous Quotes

"To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons."

Ma Jian on Freedom

More quotes about Freedom

• "Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged."

  Ronald Reagan on Freedom

• "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

  Nelson Mandela on Freedom

• "If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."

  Dwight D. Eisenhower on Freedom

• "I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

  Robert A. Heinlein on Freedom

• "Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err."

  Mahatma Gandhi on Freedom

More quotes by Ma Jian

• "When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased."

• "I meant that the Chinese people are not aware of their own entrapment. They believe they live in a free society, but don't realize how much they are being monitored and controlled, how much the information they receive is restricted and warped, until they step out of line, that is, and feel the heavy hand of the state fall on them."

• "My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them."