"Escape from Freedom" Quotes

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.

To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner.

Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.

Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

Conformity is much more widespread than one might think. It is not only the pressure of the group which makes for this conformity, but also the individual’s wish to be like all others.

There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

The transformation of the character of the people is a necessary condition for social change. Hence the central concern of revolutionary social criticism.