Literary notes about Freedom (AI summary)
Literary works employ "freedom" in remarkably varied ways, highlighting its complexity as both an ideal and a burden. In some texts, freedom is celebrated as the ultimate personal and political aspiration—a state of moral autonomy and self-determination that liberates the mind and spirit [1], [2]. In others, it is portrayed as a measured condition intrinsically linked to responsibility and the natural order, where even familial bonds and social obligations coexist with liberty [3], [4]. At times, characters experience freedom as both a joyous possibility and a source of inner conflict or loss, reflecting the tension between emancipation and its unforeseen consequences [5], [6]. Across genres and eras, the recurring motif of freedom invites readers to explore the dynamic interplay between individual choice, societal constraints, and the enduring quest for a life unburdened by despotism.
- What I have inherited is the love of wisdom, justice, and freedom.
— from The Oera Linda Book, from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century - This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass - And thus we see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same principle.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke - Your freedom and your power extend as far and no further than your natural strength; anything more is but slavery, deceit, and trickery.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Who can read the Cause of an act is halfway to Freedom!
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - Pierre’s confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt that his freedom had also completely gone.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
