Leila Aboulela Quotes

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

America is the most individualist, libertarian culture in the world.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap.

I believe in individual freedom and right to decide how and with whom I will live my life.

We shouldn't be fearful of freedom, we shouldn't be fearful of individual liberty.

I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself.

If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.

I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience which is God.

Take advice, but not orders. Only give yourself orders. Abraham Lincoln once said, 'Since I will be no one's slave, I will be no one's master.'

Freedom is control in your own life.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

I am a rank individualist.

I'm from Texas, and one of the reasons I like Texas is because there's no one in control.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.

Freedom remains still the wisest cure for freedom's temporary inconveniences.

The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of self-dependence must give each individual the right, to choose his own surroundings.

our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas.

I don't want anyone controlling me.

I want to have freedom with everything I do.

No man is wise enough to be another man's master. Each man's as good as the next -- if not a damn sight better.

An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.'

Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

. . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's.

Liberty is its own reward.

You were born free by accident. You live free by choice. To die free is your responsibility.