Haruki Murakami Quotes

As I've said, freedom is really an illusion. Anytime we think we have a real choice, it just means we haven't seen the shotgun aimed at our navel.

Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

Human beings aren't supposed to be controlled and told what to do.

There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself.

As humans, our instinct is to be free. And any sort of restrictions don't help.

Unlike most actors, I did not have a horrible childhood. Most actors have had miserable childhoods and they go into acting to hide from their real life. I had no problem playing in the woods all day. People just sort of left me alone. I think I'm gonna go back to those woods.

I don't ever tell people what to do! Even if it seems and feels that way sometimes, I don't think I should tell a person how to spend their money. I try not to tell people what to read.

Man is really free, the real man cannot but be free.

Censorship, telling people how to live their lives I completely disagree with.

You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.

Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.

I think the idea of freedom or liberty is really misused for political reasons, but it's something that resonates with people to the core. People want to be masters of their own destinies, but at the same time, I think they do so selectively. Sometimes they want to be told exactly what to do so they don't have to think for themselves - as long as they can still exercise their free will.

People are free to do whatever they want to do.

I think most people have a natural instinct to rebel.

What a tragic realm this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don't know it; they think they are free because they have never been free, and do not understand what it means.

Real freedom is not something to be acquired, it is the outcome of intelligence.

People can only be free if they are truly educated.

Truly free people do not need to be told they are free.

What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.

That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves part of eternal reality.

People are born to be free; it's a gift from God.

The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.

Just real. I want to have the freedom to do whatever I want. And more importantly, I want to have the freedom to bring everyone else along with me.

Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.

Real freedom for people can only exist whenever there is security and independence.