Edward Snowden Quotes

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

The only time you can be completely free from risk is when you're in prison.

Why do people hanker for the home? - security, safety. But in the name of security and safety, they don't make homes, they make prisons - and they are the jailed and they are the jailers, but because they have the keys in their own hands, they think they are free.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

It's difficult to put into words what freedom feels like. You only know what freedom feels like if you know what it feels like to not be free.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

When I am free to train and free to move, I feel like a gorilla in the jungle. Then, when there are a bunch of media obligations, I feel like I have been captured and am being kept on display.

You might as well expect rivers to run backwards as any man born free to be contented penned up.

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

The desire for security must be balanced with our regard for liberty.

It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free.

Freedom is not safety but opportunity.

We must choose between freedom and fear – we cannot have both.

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison.

I knew I wasn't born to be caged and chained up.

Our bodies are held captive, but our pursuit of freedom cannot be contained.

What we know to be true is that comfort isn't always freedom. People confuse the two.

You can cage the songbird, but you can't make her sing. And you can trap the free bird, but you'll have to clip her wings.

A caged canary is safe but not free.

Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable.

Carelessness about our security is dangerous, carelessness about our freedom is also dangerous.

The world like our heads was meant to be escaped from, they are prisons world and head alike.

Coerced innocence is like an imprisoned lark,--open the door, and it is off forever. The bird that roams through the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge the hawk and protect itself; but the caged one, the moment it leaves its bars and bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the vulture.