The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You'reborn with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something youassume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree towhich you resist is the degree to which you are free... Utah Phillips
About This Quote

The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You'reborn with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free...

When we are born, we come into the world with freedoms; our eyes are opened, our ears are given their capacity, and our hands are given their ability. We assume these freedoms as our birthright, like other basic human needs like food and water. We also assume other freedoms that we may not have been born with.

For example, we assume that we will be free to choose our leaders and that they will be trustworthy. If people try to take away these freedoms that we have assumed, then we will resist them until they give us permission to continue on with our usual activities.

Some Similar Quotes
  1. There was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love. - Cassandra Clare
  2. Freely we serve Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall. - John Milton
  3. He offered her the world. She said she had her own. - Monique Duval
  4. You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free. - Shannon Hale
  5. From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that... - Arthur Conan Doyle
More Quotes By Utah Phillips
  1. The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You'reborn with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something youassume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree towhich you resist is the degree...
  2. Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we're going, but where we want...
Related Topics