Liberty famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and so to speak, visible, while its evil effects are gradual and indirect and lay out of sight ... Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favor upon governmental intervention.
-- A. V. Dicey -
Perhaps worse still is what liberal societies might do to themselves in the face of this new and different threat [of terrorism]. They begin, by small but dangerous increments, to cease to be as liberal as they once were. They begin to restrict their own hard-won rights and freedoms as a protection against the crminial minority who attempt (and as we thus see, by forcing liberty to commit suidcide, succed in doing) to terrorise society.
-- A.C. Grayling -
Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.
-- Abigail Adams -
We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.
-- Abraham Flexner -
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of Slavery?
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Then shoulder to shoulder! Let us engirdle the little circle of the earth with the chains that bind us to each other. To one end let us aim our thoughts, and to one end let us aim our souls. Hail, dawn of liberty, behind thee is the redeeming sun.
-- Adam Mickiewicz -
We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy.
-- Adam Schiff -
Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.
-- Adolf Eichmann -
On Positive Liberty: The business of the State is to use its organizing powers for the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people freely to unfold its creative faculties.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Arbitrariness and true liberty are as distinct from each other that the empirical nature is distinct from the higher nature of man.
-- African Spir -
It must be all the same to the citizens ("ressortissants", Fr.) of a country that their governing (those in power) speak such language or such other ("telle langue ou telle autre", Fr.); likewise that it must be all the same to them that these adhere to such or such religion, so long as a full (or complete) liberty is equally garantee for everyone.
-- African Spir -
It is not on the ruin of liberty that we may (in the future... - "pourra", Fr.) build justice.
-- African Spir -
By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.
-- Agesilaus II -
We prefer poverty in liberty than riches in slavery.
-- Ahmed Sekou Toure -
Liberty is about our rights to question everything.
-- Ai Weiwei -
Christian liberty is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
The Founders who crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers - one that would protect Americans' liberty at all times - both in war, and in peace.
-- Al Franken -
The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free - which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.
-- Alan Barth -
Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
Every time one of us starts talking about more effective immigration controls, somebody else throws up the Statue of Liberty, how we're a nation of immigrants and all of that. The debate takes on tinges of racism, emotion.
-- Alan K. Simpson -
How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb?
-- Alan Keyes -
Anything the government gives you is just another link in the chains that destroy your liberty.
-- Alan Keyes -
From the time of the Revolutionary War, when citizens stood forward to defend their liberties against the depredations of tyranny, all the way through Civil War, through the great World Wars, this nation has been defended by the tradition of common ordinary folks who come from behind the plow, come from the store-clerking, come from the classrooms to get on the battlefields - ordinary citizens turned into heroes in defense of their liberty, because that's the potential of freedom.
-- Alan Keyes -
The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.
-- Alan Lomax -
Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.
-- Albert Camus -
The world is unimportant and whoever recognizes this conquers his liberty.
-- Albert Camus -
Ah! my friend, for whomever is alone, without a god and without a master, the weight of time is terrible. One must then choose a master, God being out of style.
-- Albert Camus -
...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men I’ve seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." "Obviously," I replied, "they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it." I, however, didn’t want to be helped, and I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me.
-- Albert Camus -
A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself.
-- Albert Einstein -
It's no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty.
-- Albert Einstein -
For the majority of people liberty means only the system and the administrators they are used to.
-- Albert J. Nock -
When politicians say "I'm in politics," it may or may not be possible to trust them, but when they say, "I'm in public service," you know you should flee.
-- Albert J. Nock -
The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty.
-- Albert Pike -
Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.
-- Albert Pike -
If humans were in fact the members of a truly social species, and if their individual differences were trifling and could be completely ironed out by appropriate conditioning, then, obviously, there would be no need for liberty and the State would be justified in persecuting the heretics who demanded it.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Liberty? Why it doesn't exist. There is no liberty in this world, just gilded cages.
-- Aldous Huxley -
This growing poverty in the midst of growing population constitutes a permanent menace to peace. And not only to peace, but also to democratic institutions and personal liberty For overpopulation is not compatible with freedom.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Remember, when you hear them beginning to say "freedom" look carefully-. see who it is they want you to butcher.
-- Alex Comfort -
It seems to me that the price of eternal vigilance is liberty.
-- Alex Tabarrok -
The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression.
-- Alexander Berkman -
The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .
-- Alexander Hamilton -
How can you trust people who are poor and own no property? ... Inequality of property will exist as long as liberty exists.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security.
-- Alexander Herzen -
The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop.
-- Alexander Herzen -
Give me again my hollow tree A crust of bread, and liberty!
-- Alexander Pope -
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville -
Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.
-- Alfred de Musset -
Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.
-- Algernon Sidney -
[L]iberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted . . .
-- Algernon Sidney -
[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.
-- Algernon Sidney -
All the higher forms of life have evolved from some one's ideal of justice, liberty or beauty; and the belief that nothing is too good to be true.
-- Alice Hegan Rice -
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself.
-- Allan Bloom -
Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts.
-- Allan Bloom -
Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior.
-- Allan H. Meltzer -
God leaves to our conscience the choice of the road we decide to follow, and the liberty of yielding to one or another of the opposing influences that act upon us.
-- Allan Kardec -
The message for the American youth is that this is a great country and we need to make sure that we pass on a heritage, a lineage and a legacy of American exceptionalism to each and everyone of you so that you can enjoy all the great liberties and freedoms that all the previous generations have had.
-- Allen West -
The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
If the charter of your liberties entails death and despair for untold multitudes, then it is nothing but a license for slaughter.
-- Amitav Ghosh -
There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.
-- Andre Breton -
To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
-- Andre Gide -
Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.
-- Andre Marrou -
Republicans don't want anyone having more fun than they do, and the Democrats don't want anyone making more money than they do. Libertarians want you to make money and have fun.
-- Andre Marrou -
The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood. The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person's liberty. Are you free?
-- Andrew Ford -
Government . . . is a reflection of us. It is up to us to earn a better reflection.
-- Andrew Horning -
There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.
-- Andrew Jackson -
Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.
-- Andrew Johnson -
A traffic jam is a collision between free enterprise and socialism. Free enterprise produces automobiles faster than socialism can build roads and road capacity.
-- Andrew Joseph Galambos -
The Freedom Bell in Berlin is, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, a symbol which reminds us that freedom does not come about of itself. It must be struggled for and then defended anew every day of our lives.
-- Angela Merkel -
I think we recognize as Americans there are certain things that are just primary to the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy here and religious freedom is one of the most important things we as Americans cherish.
-- Ann Romney -
You gain and lose different things in different mediums or different sectors of different mediums. There are liberties you get on tiny indie films in terms of not having to be designed toward a marketing demographic.
-- Anna Paquin
