Lee Child Quotes

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

I can't imagine people telling me what to do - I just can't imagine it.

America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's need to think.

We don't really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty.

The free, self-determining, self-developing soul may not walk its own path, however innocently, but must fit into the scheme and pattern …

The path of freedom is blocked much more by those who wish to obey than by those who wish to command.

I'm not a big fan of people telling each other what to do, I'll say that.

The frustration of being ordered around by somebody to do something - everyone can relate to that. I think Beetle represents that - the common man caught in that morass of rules and regulations. I don't even think of it as an army strip... it's a world anyone can understand.

I don't like rules.

It makes me angry when people insist that I have a responsibility to do what they think I should do.

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law.

When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap.

It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness

These are not free men in any rational and exact sense of the word.

There’s a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.

No man can take your freedom from you. They can limit your mobility, but that's about all they can do

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

What is freedom? There is no such thing as absolute freedom!

I have very little experience of self-government. In fact, I am one of the most governed people in the world.

Every law is an infraction of liberty.

The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.