None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

—Pearl S. Buck

power hope freedom

About Pearl S. Buck

Portrait of Pearl S. Buck

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was an American writer and humanitarian. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first...

More quotations from Pearl S. Buck

One faces the future with one's past.

—Pearl S. Buck

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. . . . What is new is only new to us.

—Pearl S. Buck

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word duty. It is the other side of rights.

—Pearl S. Buck

I am so absorbed in the wonder of the earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life.

—Pearl S. Buck

All birth is unwilling.

—Pearl S. Buck

birth willingness

More quotations tagged with “freedom”

I am, and always have been, a revolutionary writer, because our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes, our power wielded by cowards and weaklings, and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.

—George Bernard Shaw

power wisdom freedom writing law cowardice morality laws revolution honor order property

Now I see the secret of making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

—Walt Whitman

freedom earth sleep air

A hungry man is not a free man.

—Adlai Stevenson

An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his "worldly" interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests. . . . So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself.

—Vaclav Havel

justice truth power freedom peace words democracy change responsibility talk values

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.

—Peter Ustinov

freedom choice USA conformity