I always tell people that this is a really simple deal: Work hard. If you work hard, follow what's required and set your priorities right, then you can really perform without taking shortcuts. If you're taking shortcuts, you can't be free.
I think that in free societies, and we're constantly talking about living in free societies, aren't we, in contradiction with unhappy people who live in non-free societies, that the benefit, the dividend of living in a free society is that you say what you think.
Living in the present moment means living according to truth and principle (but not according to hard rigid dogma) flexibly applied in the particular way required by the immediate situation in which you are. Such a way of living leaves you free, not ruled tyrannically by imposed regulations which may not at all suit the particular case.
There's an ease that I have living in Australia. The best things about Sydney are free: the sunshine's free, and the harbour's free, and the beach is free.
There are no shortcuts, and you can't wing your way through real hard work. I learned the hard way by not taking auditions seriously when I first came out to L.A. and probably wasted a good seven years.
Everyone talks about freedom. All around the world different people, different races, different countries are fighting for freedom. But what is freedom? In America we speak of living in a free country. But are we really free? Are we free to be who we really are? The answer is no, we are not free. True freedom has to do with the human spirit-it is freedom to be who we really are. Who stops us from being free? We blame the government, we blame the weather, we blame our parents, we blame religion, we blame God. Who really stops us from being free? We stop ourselves.
My parents divorced, my brothers and I ended up living with my mother, and we were living with the choice of heating or eating. My mum was working, but she needed financial support to make ends meet. I had to have free school dinners and free school uniforms.
I'm everything free. I'm gluten-free. I'm dairy-free. I'm sugar-free. Sometimes I'm yeast-free which really means I eat paper.
If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free - however free one can be on this planet.
I'm free - but I'm also not free because there are millions of young people living in Iran. A filmmaker can only do a little.
The single aim of my life is that every child is:
free to be a child,
free to grow and develop,
free to eat, sleep, see daylight,
free to laugh and cry,
free to play,
free to learn, free to go to school, and above all, free to dream.
What I learned in politics (is that) it's a very enslaving place to be. It's hard to be free in politics and if the search for your spirit is to be free, it's hard.
Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.
The essence of a free life is being able to choose the style of living you prefer free from exclusion and without the compulsion of conformity or law.
What polluters do is raise the standards of living for themselves, while lowering the quality of living for everybody else, and they do that by escaping the disciplines of the free market.