C. Delisle Burns

The value of freedom lies in the original impulse, and not in the absence of an obstacle.

C. Delisle Burns (26 January 1879 – 22 January 1942) was a leading English atheist and secularist writer and lecturer.

Quotes

• It has been assumed that freedom means the absence of limitation, which is correct but misleading; for it explains by a negative, and has therefore led to the absurdities of individualism. ... The value of freedom lies in the original impulse, and not in the absence of an obstacle.
  • The Philosophy of Labour (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1925), as quoted in The Meaning of Adult Education by Eduard C. Lindeman (1926), p. 64