QuoteProject
If you live in free countries, you don't have to spend all your life arguing about freedom because it is all around you. It seems redundant to make a lot of noise about something when, in fact, there it is. But if someone tries to remove it, it becomes important for you to formulate your own defenses of it.
Salman Rushdie
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Living in freedom should allow you to appreciate it without constant debate, but defending it becomes crucial when it is threatened.

This quote by Salman Rushdie emphasizes the significance of recognizing and appreciating the freedom present in free societies. When freedom is abundant, it may seem excessive to argue about it, yet the moment that freedom is challenged, individuals must actively defend it and articulate their beliefs to ensure its preservation.

Themes

FreedomDefenseImportanceAppreciationSociety

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about civil liberties at a public forum.

More from Salman Rushdie

I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Salman RushdieRead
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
Salman RushdieRead
faith without doubt is addiction
Salman RushdieRead
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
Salman RushdieRead
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Salman RushdieRead
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Salman RushdieRead

Similar quotes

The One remains, the many change and pass;_x000D_ _x000D_ Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;_x000D_ _x000D_ Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,_x000D_ _x000D_ Stains the white radiance of Eternity,_x000D_ _x000D_ Until Death tramples it to fragments.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
The meaning in life is not out there but inbetween our ears. In many ways this makes us the lords of creation.
Stephen HawkingRead
What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.
Sitting BullRead
Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there
Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiRead
It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Salman Rushdie | QuoteProject