Ba Jin Quotes

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

No matter what a man does, he is not fully sane or human unless there is a spirit of freedom in him

There shall be no slavery of the mind.

Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone.

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.

I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.

Nobody told me how to talk or think.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

It's important to me that I should be free to express myself.

I cannot compromise or inhibit my independence.

Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.

Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.

The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.

In London I feel free; nobody bothers anyone and everyone is free to express themselves.

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

I try to stay real with my thoughts and the things that I go through in life. I like being free.

A people are free in proportion as they form their own opinions.

I hold a jail more roomy ... than would be the whole world if I were to submit to repression.

It is always easy to take a position when society agrees with you. It is hard to take a position that everyone else in society disagrees with.

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it’ s because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that’ s the most revolutionary insight of all.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

Who dares not speak his free thoughts is a slave.

In a free state, both the tongue and the mind ought to be free.