Freedom

The ripest message of genius and intellect to the world to-day is that a high and worthy civilization can be achieved only through complete freedom of the individual.
~ William Bailie, Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist (1906). The Anarchist Spirit

The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Beveridge, Voluntary Action (1948).

Dependence being very little else, [is] but an obligation to conform to the will or law of that superior person or state, upon which the inferior depends.
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69). Introduction, sect. 4: Of the Countries Subject to the Laws of England

In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69).

The cistern contains: The fountain overflows.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, & you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.
~ William Blake, A Vision of the Last Judgment (c. 1810).

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.
~ William Edgar Borah, Remarks in the U.S. Senate (19 April 1917).

We may extend our dominion over the whole continent, our navies may ride triumphant on every sea, our name may be the terror of Kings, our decrees the destinies of nations, but be assured it will be at the price of our free institutions. I know not how it may be with others, but for my own part, I would not pay this price for all the power and all the glory that ever clustered around all the banners and all the eagles emblazoned in the pantheon of history.
~ William Waters Boyce, Speech delivered in the House of Representatives (15 January 1855). The Annexation of Cuba

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989).

The unsubmissive mind has freedom to be
nothing, worldless -- not to exist at all.
~ William Bronk, The World, the Worldless (1964). Blue Spruces in Pairs, a Bird Bath Between

All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts.
~ William Wells Brown, Speech to the American Anti-Slavery Society, New York (6 May 1862).

I would have the Constitution torn in shreds and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Let us destroy the Constitution and build on its ruins the temple of liberty. I have brothers in slavery. I have seen chains placed on their limbs and beheld them captive.
~ William Wells Brown

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). The Ages. Stanza 33

[N]or yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven.
~ William Cullen Bryant, The Antiquity of Freedom (1842).

The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.
~ William Cullen Bryant, Editorial in the New York Evening Post (18 November 1837). The Death of Lovejoy

Thou, while thy prison-walls were dark around,
Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,
And to thy brief captivity was brought
A vision of thy Switzerland unbound.
The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee
For the great work to set thy country free.
~ William Cullen Bryant, William Tell

Their hearts and sentiments were free, their appetites were hearty.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan, City of the Saints

We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how every so often it is necessary in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., The Jeweler's Eye (1968)

The best things in life are free. And the cheesiest things in life are free with a paid subscription to Sports Illustrated.
~ "Johnny" William Carson

Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, O Pioneers! (1913).

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable principles which it has deliberately espoused.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Discourse Preached at the Annual Election (26 May 1830). Spiritual Freedom

I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, [and] which receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Discourse Preached at the Annual Election (26 May 1830). Spiritual Freedom

Our great error as a people is, that we put an idolatrous trust in our free institutions; as if these, by some magic power, must secure our rights, however we enslave ourselves to evil passions. We need to learn that the forms of liberty are not its essence; that whilst the letter of a free constitution is preserved its spirit may be lost; that even its wisest provisions and most guarded powers may be weapons of tyranny.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Discourse Preached at the Annual Election (26 May 1830). Spiritual Freedom

In war, then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Extracts from Sermons preached, on Days of Humiliation and Prayer, appointed in consequence of the Declaration of War against Great Britain (c. 1812). Duties of the Citizen in Times of Trial or Danger

To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. (1841). Introductory Remarks (April 18th, 1841).

Freedom know this, that every man is free
To choose his life and what he'll be.
~ William C. Clegg

It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.
~ William Cobbett

To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.
~ William Cobbett, Advice to Young Men: And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (1829). Letter II: To A Young Man

The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Address at Trinity Institute, San Francisco, CA (7 February 1981).

My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Ay-h, adieu. My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all ye douceurs, ye sommeils du matin, adieu.
~ William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700). Act IV, scene v

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Table Talk (written in 1781)

Receive our air, that moment they are free!
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
~ William Cowper

[T]hey that fight for freedom, undertake
The noblest cause mankind can have at stake.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Table Talk (written in 1781)

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;
And we are weeds without it.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book V. The Winter Morning Walk

If I cannot be free
To do such work as pleases me,
Near woodland pools and under trees,
You'll get no work at all, for I
Would rather live this life and die
A beggar or a thief, than be
A working slave with no days free.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, Farewell to Poesy (1910). No Master

Much that I sought, I could not find;
Much that I found, I could not bind;
Much that I bound, I could not free;
Much that I freed returned to me.
~ Lee Wilson Dodd, Ronde Macabre

[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when in it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.
~ William Orville Douglas (concurring opinion), Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.
~ William Orville Douglas, in the New York Times (20 January 1980).

Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98 (1951)

Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 484 (1957).

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case the judge or the jury) that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436 (1957)

One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees. . . . The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands.
~ William Orville Douglas, Speech at Fordham University Alumni Association, New York, NY (9 February 1939).

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
~ William Orville Douglas

The Free Exercise Clause protects the individual from any coercive measure that encourages him toward one faith or creed, discourages him from another, or makes it prudent or desirable for him to select one and embrace it.
~ William Orville Douglas, The Bible and the Schools (1966).

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.
~ William Orville Douglas

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning to all freedom.
~ William Orville Douglas

There are no precedents to construe; no principles previously expounded to apply. We write on a clean slate.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Public Utilities Comm'n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451 (1952)

I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, John Brown (1909).

In my youth, I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
~ William James "Will" Durant, in Time Magazine (13 August 1965). The Essence of the Centuries

Limitation is the essence of liberty, for as soon as liberty is complete, it dies in anarchy.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume X (1967). Rousseau and Revolution

Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline that lifts as to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
~ William James "Will" Durant

When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
~ William James "Will" Durant

I'm beat to the square, and square to the beat, and that's my vocation.
~ William Everson (aka Brother Antoninus)

I gave my life for freedom -- this I know:
For those who bade me fight had told me so.
~ William Norman Ewer, Five Souls and Other Verses (1917). Five Souls

This is a free country. Folks have a right to send me letters, and I have a right not to read them.
~ William Faulkner (on discarding unopened mail), recalled on his death (6 July 1962).

We cannot choose freedom established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on a caste system of equality like military rank. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~ William Faulkner, in Harper's Magazine (June 1956).

I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
~ W.C. Fields

If a free thought seek expression,
Speak it boldly, speak it all!
~ William D. Gallagher

Enslave the liberty of one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.
~ William Lloyd Garrison

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- and i will be heard.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, from The Liberator. Vol. I, No. 1 (1 January 1831). To the Public

I am unspeakably happy to believe that the great mass of my countrymen are now heartily disposed to admit that I have not acted the part of a madman, fanatic, incediary or traitor.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Speech honoring the passage of the 13th Amendment (1865).

I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt.
~ William Lloyd Garrison

Liberty for each, for all, and forever!
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Speech at Charleston, South Carolina (14 April 1865). The Governing Passion of My Soul

Suffer me at least to call life and pursuits of life my own!
~ William Godwin, The Adventures of Caleb Williams or, Things as They Are (1794). Volume 3, Chapter I

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it.
~ Rudolph William Giuliani, in New York Newsday (20 April 1998). Taking Liberties: Courts, critics fault Rudy on free speech, public access

The possibility of morality thus depends on the possibility of liberty; for if man be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has, therefore, no responsibility -- no moral personality at all.
~ Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, II (1870).

The greatest Glory of a free-born People,
Is to transmit that Freedom to their Children.
~ William Havard, Regulus, a Tragedy (1744). Act IV, scene iv

Freedom is a fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter. . . . That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of Right (1821).

The missing element in every phase of American life, from education to culture to the thicket of identity politics, is what used to be called rugged individualism.
~ William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism (1994).

When we have reached the point of measuring the stature of our freedom by the height of the pile of our discarded inhibitions, is anyone minded to die for this eviscerated ghost of that modern liberty which once was sacred because it was important?
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, What Man Can Make of Man (1942).

Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1792). Chapter 8

Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1792). Introduction

The enemies of Freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, The End of an Age (1948).

Free Will does not say that everything that is physically conceivable is also morally possible. It merely says that of alternatives that really tempt our will more than one is really possible.
~ William James, Unitarian Review (September 1884).

Freedom's first deed should be to affirm itself.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 2. Chapter XXVI: Will

Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being.
~ William James

Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest, is identical with true freedom.
~ William James

[O]ur first act of freedom, if we are free, ought in all inward propriety to be to affirm that we are free.
~ William James, An Address to the Harvard Divinity Students (1884). The Dilemma of Determinism

It is a totally different world. Moscow is right now an open city. It is just as open as Washington, DC
~ William Lord, The Washington Post (June 1988).

Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.
~ Bill Maher, in HBO-TV special, Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home (July 2003; Live performance at the Hudson Theatre, New York).

Restrictions will set you free.
~ William Allaudin (W.A.) Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music (1991).

It may be that in some queer way he identifies himself with the kite flying so free and so high above him, and it's as it were an escape from the monotony of life. It may be that in some dim, confused way it represents an ideal of freedom and adventure, And you know, when a man once gets bitten with the virus of the ideal not all the King's doctors and not all the King's surgeons can rid him of it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Quartet (1948). The Kite

There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915). Chapter 23

God of justice, save the people
From the clash of race and creed,
From the strife of class and faction,
Make our nation free indeed.
~ William Pierson Merrill, in Inclusive Language Hymns (1909). Not Alone for Mighty Empire

Responsibility is the price of freedom. So is tolerance.
~ Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (1998). Part I: The Basic Premise. An Overview

Two words about the world we see,
And nought but Mine and Thine they be.
Ah! might we drive them forth and wide
With us should rest and peace abide.
~ William Morris, from Poems by the Way (1891). Mine and Thine

There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle.
~ Bill Moyers

If religion and churches are truly threats to our liberties, how did those liberties survive, and in such healthy condition, all those years of classroom prayer and Bible-reading?
~ William Murchison, Reclaiming Morality in America (1994).

Do you call yourself free? I want to hear your ruling idea, and not that you have escaped from a yoke. . . . Free from what? Zarathustra does not care about that! But your eye should clearly tell me: free for what?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

To do what we will, is natural liberty; to do what we will, consistently with the interest of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil society.
~ William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). Book VI. Chapter 5: Of Civil Liberty

[F]or liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.
~ William Penn, Frame of Government of Pennsylvania (5 May 1682). The Preface

Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature . . . no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.
~ William Penn, First Frame of Government (25 April 1682).

There can be no friendship when there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be penned up in straight and narrow inclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693).

Wear none of thine own chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Promising

I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.
~ William Pitt, the Elder, Address, House of Commons (14 January 1766).

Too much freedom undercuts freedom.
~ William Raspberry

A country can get more real joy out of just hollering for their freedom than they can if they get it.
~ Will Rogers

Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches.
~ Will Rogers

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.
~ Will Rogers

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Last Essay (1967).

Three times in my life I have been captured: by the orphanage, by school, and by the Army. But I'm mistaken. The fact is I was captured only once, when I was born, only that capture is also setting free, which is what this is actually all about. The free prisoner.
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

One of the chief elements of the value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happiness.
~ William Henry Seward, The Irrepressible Conflict. Speech given at Rochester, New York (25 October 1858).

And liberty plucks justice by the nose.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act III, scene ii

Thought is free.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act III, scene ii

You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act I, scene i

To thee, fair Freedom! I retire
From flattery, cards, and dice, and din:
Nor art thou found in mansions higher
Than the low cot, or humble inn.
~ William Shenstone, Written on a Window of an Inn at Henley (1753).

Democracy is not levelling -- it is, properly defined, the harmony of the moral world. It insists upon inequalities, as its law declares, that all men should hold the place to which they are properly entitled. The definition of true libery, is the undisturbed possession of that place in society to which our moral and intellectual merits entitle us.
~ William Gilmore Simms, Slavery in America, Being a Brief Review of Miss Martineau on That Subject (1838).

Bondage is . . . subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.
~ William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man and Other Essays (1918).

Freedom's enemies are waste, lethargy, indifference, immorality, and the insidious attitude of something for nothing.
~ William Arthur Ward

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
~ William Arthur Ward, To Risk

At last, I feel completely free.
~ Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Press conference at the Adam's Mark hotel, Columbia, SC (17 December 2003).

Inside the dragon's stomach, in the stinking dark, the boy felt along the soft, wet walls for the long vulnerable veins that carried the blood from the heart, and slowly, with a knife dulled by childhood games, he began to kill the dragon the only way any tyranny can be killed, from the inside out.
~ William John Watkins, The Only Way A Dragon Can Be Killed

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.
~ William Allen White

And, sir, when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?
~ William Wilberforce (on the abolition of slavery), Address, House of Commons (12 May 1789).

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Problems (1914). Protest

A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Stairs to the Roof (1941).

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Camino Real (1953).

To be free is to have achieved your life.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

You sullen pig of a man
you force me into the mud
with your stinking ash-cart!
~ William Carlos Williams, from Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems (1917). Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!

Whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.
~ Wendell Lewis Wilkie

Natural freedoms are but just:
There's something generous in mere lust.
~ John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester, A Ramble in St James' Park (1680)

All men are by nature, equal and free. No one has a right to any authority over another without his consent . . . The consequence is, that the happiness of the society is the first law of every government.
~ James Wilson, Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament (1774 pamphlet).

Without Liberty, Law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without Law, Liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.
~ James Wilson, Lectures on Law, Delivered in the College of Philadelphia (1790-91). Of the Study of the Law in the United States

And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is.
~ William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room (1807).

Man free, man working for himself, with choice
Of time, place, and object.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805). Book VIII: Retrospect. -- Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man

The Hero comes to liberate, not defy;
And, while he marches on with stedfast hope,
Conqueror beloved! expected anxiously!
~ William Wordsworth, from Ecclesiastical Sonnets. In Series (1821-22), Part III. IX. William The Third

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
~ William Wordsworth, in Morning Post (16 April 1803). It Is Not To Be Thought Of

I have heard people eat most heartily of another man's meat, that is, what they do not pay for.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675). Act V, scene iv

Wine gives you liberty, love takes it away.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675). Act I, scene i