Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.

All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.

There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive.

Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way.

Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.

Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.

I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.

The desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.

The reason that a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.

If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

Anything that prevents you from being friendly, a good neighbour, is a terror tactic.

A smartphone is a computer - it's not built using a computer - the job it does is the job of being a computer. So, everything we say about computers, that the software you run should be free - you should insist on that - applies to smart phones just the same. And likewise to those tablets.

Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel.

Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine.

Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.

I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute.

If ebooks mean that readers' freedom must either increase or decrease, we must demand the increase.

If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control.

Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy.

Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.

The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non fiction. This practice was useful and is the only way many authors works have survived even in part.

Globalizing a bad thing makes it worse. But globalizing a good thing is usually good.

A hacker is someone who enjoys playful cleverness not necessarily with computers. The programmers in the old MIT free software community of the 60s and 70s referred to themselves as hackers. Around 1980 journalists who discovered the hacker community mistakenly took the term to mean security breaker.

Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.

Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something.

Younger workers should have more freedom to build their retirement nest egg.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Into every soul, however purged and fenced, evil appears to have as much freedom of entrance as God Himself.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

Love and freedom are vital to the creation and upbringing of a child.

Is anarchism desirable? Well, who does not seek freedom? What man, unless willing to declare himself in bondage, would care to call any control agreeable? Think about it!

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

The transfer is a monumental occasion as the Iraqi people take control of their government and their future and forge ahead with creating a society governed by the tenets of life, liberty and freedom.

When people say 'What are underground comics?' I think the best way you can define them is just the absolute freedom involved... we didn't have anyone standing over us.

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that.