Jimi Hendrix - The History of Mr Polly by H G Wells 1949 - The Adjustment Bureau 2011 - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV - Morgan Freeman TV - Christopher Hitchens - Samuel Johnson - Richard Mack - Michael Mosley TV - Sigmund Freud - Vladimir Lenin - Henry David Thoreau - Edward Snowden - Charles Peguy - Tonight TV - Robert Tressell - Aleister Crowley - B F Skinner - Laurence Sterne - Hearts & Minds 1974 - Dispatches TV - Guillermo Ford - Peaky Blinders TV - Wolvoman80 - The Matrix Reloaded 2003 - Counter-Intelligence 2013 - William Buckley - Game of Thrones TV - Human, All Too Human TV - Alan Wilson - Dark 2019 -
I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live the way I want to. Jimi Hendrix
Why are you rolling about on the floor? The History of Mr Polly by H G Wells 1949 starring John Mills & Betty Ann Davies & Megs Jenkins & Finlay Currie & Gladys Henson & Diana Churchill & Shelagh Fraser & Edward Chapman & Dandy Nichols & Sally Ann Howers & Juliet Mills et al, director Anthony Pelissier, boss to Mr Polly
Can’t get a job, can ya? ... A social misfit, that’s what I am. ibid. Polly to self
I suppose I must have mourning. ibid. Polly in day room
You make me feel like one of those old knights. ibid. him to her on garden wall
I’m just a nobody. ibid.
I could be happy in a shop if I had the right company. ibid. Polly courting
Alfie, it’s just like a dream. ibid. her to him
Books – what’s the good of them anyway? ibid.
Kill myself – that’s what I’ll do. ibid. Polly to self
Come to church. ibid. missus to Polly
If you don’t like your life, you can change it. ibid. Polly to self
You don’t look a wrong ’un. ibid. landlady to Polly
Oooh and there’s just one other thing – you’ll have to defend the premises in general. ibid.
Most people live life on the path we set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while, people like you come along who knock down all the obstacles we put in your way. People who realize free will is a gift you’ll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that’s the Chairman’s real plan that maybe one day, we won’t write the plan. You will. The Adjustment Bureau 2011 starring Matt Damon & Emily Blunt & Terence Stamp & John Slattery & Anthony Mackie & Michael Kelly & Donnie Keshawarz & Anthony Ruivivar et al, director George Nolfi, Harry voiceover
One of the prices of giving people freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s3e24: Shakaar, Odo to Kira
Do we control our destinies? Or are we prisoners of fate? ... Is freedom of choice just an illusion. Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Discovery Science 2013
How much freedom do we really have? ibid.
Freedom. You say America and it’s probably the next word that comes to mind. It’s our fundamental right to live our lives however we want. But freedom isn’t something we’ve always had. The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman s1e3: The March of Freedom, National Geographic 2017
Around the world there is a growing tide of freedom. ibid.
It never occurred to me that the rights to freedom spelled out in the Declaration of Independence were deliberately phrased to exclude slaves and women. ibid.
I don’t think we have any choice but to have free will ... But the Christian answer is, Of course you have free will. The Boss insists upon it. Christopher Hitchens
1If you say God has given you free will, I have to say, How do you know that? … Of course we have free will because we have no choice but to have it. Christopher Hitchens
We know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t. Samuel Johnson
Government should only exist to protect the freedoms of the individuals of whom it serves, not control their lives. Richard Mack, retired sheriff
[B F] Skinner applied his ideas to human behaviour. What Skinner was saying is that we are many ways like pigeons. That we are the product of the numerous interactions we have with our environment ... We can no more exercise free-will than this pigeon decides to peck or indeed turn in a circle. We could change people’s behaviour for the better by changing their environment ... To Skinner free-will was a delusion. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion, BBC 2010
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
While the state exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. Vladimir Lenin
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state ...
The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard. Henry David Thoreau, I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D Thoreau
Study after study has shown that human behaviour changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free. Edward Snowden
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. Charles Peguy
How many of our freedoms we are willing to give up in return for our safety? Tonight: After Paris: Can We Be Safe? ITV 2015
He is a Free man. He is the Heir of all the Ages. He enjoys perfect Liberty. He has the right to choose freely which he will do – Submit or Starve. Ear dirt, or eat nothing. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
But these were not free: their servile lives were spent in grovelling and cringing and toiling and running about like little dogs at the behest of their numerous masters. ibid.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Aleister Crowley
We can no longer afford freedom. And so it must be replaced with control over man, his conduct and his culture. B F Skinner, Beyond Freedom & Dignity
... so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, — pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
What kind of freedom would you give us? Hearts & Minds, editor Trinh Bay magazine 1974
Members of this Labour government once spoke out eloquently for civil liberties. That government is now enacting measures from identity cards to restrictions on free speech that are unprecedented in modern times. And its leader maintains that these new laws are needed to make us all safer. There is little evidence that these new laws and powers are actually making us any more secure. But there is evidence such changes are making us less free to speak our minds. Dispatches: Stealing Away Your Freedom, Channel 4 2009
You now have to seek police permission to hold a demonstration within eleven hundred yards of parliament. ibid.
Train spotting: a full body-search in a public place. ibid.
They also seem curiously zealous when it comes to investigating unfashionable opinions. ibid.
This sort of policing may not be familiar here but other countries know it all too well. ibid.
The move to allow detention of suspects for thirty days is a direct blow at habeas corpus which is meant to prevent anyone being held without charge. What’s more, Labour and Tory governments have seriously discussed limiting jury trial. The prime minister himself clearly thinks that he knows better than centuries of British tradition ... How is it that these benevolent liberal-minded people have ended up presiding over the current bonfire of liberties? ibid.
There are now 24,000 under-18s on the official DNA database who have never been cautioned or convicted. ibid.