"There will never be a really free..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
More by Henry David Thoreau
More on Freedom
“We must be prepared to pay a price for freedom, for no price that is ever asked for it is half the cost of doing without it.”
“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good - anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers'. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business.”
“There is no doubt that our last state will be worse than our first, if we surrender our reason into somebody's keeping.”
More on Individuality
“I will become a firefly and even in the day my glow will be seen in spite of the sun. Let others be as butterflies who preen their wings yet depend on the charity of a flower for life.”
“Build therefore your own world.”
“It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.”