Citations:free

English citations of free

			1678		1843		2016
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

• 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress:

  2. I find that men (as high as trees) will write Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight For writing so: indeed, if they abuse Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use To that intent; but yet let truth be free To make her sallies upon thee and me, Which way it pleases God; for who knows how, Better than he that taught us first to plough, To guide our mind and pens for his design?

• 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol:

  "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.
  Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.
  But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl — you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you.

• 2016 October 2nd, Nick Cohen, “Liberal guilt won’t fight nationalism” in The Guardian Weekly, volume 195, № 17 (30 September–6 October 2016), page 21/3:

  Meanwhile, the authoritarianism, which has turned left-liberalism into a movement for sneaks and prudes, was always going to play into the hands of the right. Free citizens have stopped listening to those who respond to the challenge of argument by screaming for the police to arrest the politically incorrect or for universities to ban speakers who depart from leftish orthodoxy.