It is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government, the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world. Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power, the lust for bloodshed. The longing for freedom takes the form of crushing the enemy- there is always the enemy!- into the earth; and where and who is the enemy if there is no visible establishment to attack, to destroy with blood and fire? Remember all that oratory when freedom is threatened again. Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.
About This Quote
About Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter was a 19th-century American journalist, fiction writer, and political activist. Katherine Anne Porter was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in the United States that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Freedom — The value of liberty, independence, and self-determination