Liberty famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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The timid and fearful cannot defend liberty -- or anything else.
-- G. Edward Griffin -
I want children, but at the moment the liberty I have now finally, has a far too high value.
-- Gabriela Sabatini -
The Founders believed liberty came directly from God. With their knowledge of Scripture, they knew each child was made in the image of God. That is why everyone had dignity, value and worth.
-- Gary Bauer -
... thou shall not steal, even by majority vote ...
-- Gary North -
Words summarize the American philosophy of life: Live and let live; Let's make a deal. 8 words summarize American foreign policy: We're better than you; Do it our way.
-- Gary North -
The appalling thing about war is that it kills all love of truth.
-- Georg Brandes -
The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny
-- Georg Buchner -
When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -
Today the primary threat to the liberties of the American people comes not from communism, foreign tyrants or dictators. It comes from the tendency on our own shores to centralize power, to trust bureaucracies rather than people.
-- George Allen -
It is the privilege and duty of the present generation to pass on to its successors, unimpaired, the heritage of liberty bequeathed to it by the founders of the Republic.
-- George B. Cortelyou -
A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.
-- George Berkeley -
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
-- George Berkeley -
Liberty is the breath of life to nations.
-- George Bernard Shaw -
The doctrine that man is infinitely tough and resourceful and not easily cheated of his freedom to sin.
-- George C. Homans -
You may name a bronze statue 'Liberty,' or a painted figure in a city hall 'Commerce,' or a marble form in a temple 'Athene' or 'Venus;' but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman.
-- George Edward Woodberry -
Popular revolt against a ruthless, experienced modern dictatorship, which enjoys a monopoly over weapons and communications, ... is simply not a possibility in the modern age.
-- George F. Kennan -
Freedom and the power to choose should not be the privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American.
-- George H. W. Bush -
So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
-- George Lucas -
It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
-- George MacDonald -
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.
-- George Mason -
The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
-- George Mason -
Our All is at Stake, and the little Conveniencys and Comforts of Life, when set in Competition with our Liberty, ought to be rejected not with Reluctance but with Pleasure.
-- George Mason -
The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.
-- George Orwell -
Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip.
-- George Orwell -
Literature is doomed if liberty of thought perishes.
-- George Orwell -
The English are probably more capable than most peoples of making revolutionary change without bloodshed. In England, if anywhere,it would be possible to abolish poverty without destroying liberty.
-- George Orwell -
Whom the gods would destroy, they first subsidize.
-- George Roche III -
We do not precisely enjoy liberty at the Figaro. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you should know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids ...
-- George Sand -
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.
-- George Santayana -
To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.
-- George Sutherland -
Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle.
-- George W Truett -
Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that a great ideal of human freedom entrusted to us in a special way and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.
-- George W. Bush -
Yes, we [USA] can be safe and secure, if we stay on the offense against the terrorists and if we spread freedom and liberty around the world.
-- George W. Bush -
Our long-term security depends on our deep faith in liberty. And we'll continue to promote freedom around the world.
-- George W. Bush -
Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice, but I denounce political extremism, of the left or the right, based on duplicity, falsehood, fear, violence and threats when they endanger liberty.
-- George W. Romney -
The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.
-- George Washington -
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
-- George Washington -
What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.
-- George Washington -
I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.
-- George Washington -
The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.
-- George Washington -
[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
-- George Washington -
Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
-- George Washington -
Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.
-- George Washington -
Liberty, when it degrades into licentiousness, begets confusion, and frequently ends in tyranny or some woeful confusion.
-- George Washington -
They will avoid ... those Overgrown Military establishements which ... are ... particularly hostile to Republican liberty.
-- George Washington -
When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen; and we shall most sincerely rejoice with you in the happy hour when the establishment of American Liberty, upon the most firm and solid foundations shall enable us to return to our Private Stations in the bosom of a free, peacefully and happy Country.
-- George Washington -
Interwoven is the love of liberty with every ligament of the heart.
-- George Washington -
Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends.
-- George Will -
Our common liberty is consecrated by a common sorrow.
-- George William Curtis -
We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over.
-- Gerald Bard Tjoflat -
The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and look into their eyes and ask, “Are we free?†I have thought that if we are free, the answer cannot hurt us. And if we are not free, must we not hear the answer?
-- Gerry Spence -
Faced with the pain of freedom, man begs for his shackles.
-- Gerry Spence -
As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.
-- Gertrude Himmelfarb -
absolute liberty ... tends to corrupt absolutely.
-- Gertrude Himmelfarb -
Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.
-- Giacomo Casanova -
I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.
-- Giacomo Casanova -
Liberty may make mistakes but tyranny is the death of a nation.
-- Giacomo Matteotti -
What is liberty? The measure of dignity.
-- Giannina Braschi -
The life and liberty and property and happiness of the common man throughout the world are at the absolute mercy of a few persons whom he has never seen, involved in complicated quarrels that he has never heard of.
-- Gilbert Murray -
Divine love does not weigh down, nor carry his servant captive and enslaved to the lowest depths, but raises him, supports him and magnifies him above all liberty whatsoever.
-- Giordano Bruno -
Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty.
-- Girolamo Savonarola -
Liberty and equality--lovely and sacred words!
-- Giuseppe Mazzini -
Liberty, understood by materialists as the right to do or not to do anything not directly injurious to others, we understand as the faculty of choosing, among the various modes of fulfilling duty, those most in harmony with our own tendencies.
-- Giuseppe Mazzini -
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
-- Gore Vidal -
Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God. These duties are, internally, love and adoration: externally, devotion and obedience; therefore provision should be made for maintaining divine worship as well as education. But each one has a right to entire liberty as to religious opinions, for religion is the relation between God and man; therefore it is not within the reach of human authority.
-- Gouverneur Morris -
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
-- Granville Hicks -
Whenever Hollywood gets involved with real life events, certain liberties have to be taken.
-- Greg Kinnear -
...No opening sermons concerning children with humps and fins for limbs, who nonetheless, immortal souls all, deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happy Meals.
-- Gregory Maguire -
You can permit yourself any liberty in the opening except the luxury of a passive position.
-- Grigory Sanakoev -
When I am dead, let it be said of me: he belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, and least of all, to any regime except the regime of liberty.
-- Gustave Courbet -
Just as war is the natural consequence of monopoly, peace is the natural consequence of liberty.
-- Gustave de Molinari -
The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor.
-- Gustave de Molinari -
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.
-- H. L. Mencken -
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
-- H. L. Mencken -
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
-- H. L. Mencken -
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
-- H. L. Mencken -
The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.
-- H. L. Mencken -
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights.
-- H. L. Mencken -
[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
-- H. L. Mencken -
The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
-- H. L. Mencken -
You are wrong. The state and its existence are essential before everything else. All this preoccupation with liberty is not serious.
-- Habib Bourguiba -
Life without Liberty is far worse than death.
-- Hamid Karzai -
I had to learn that there is more to the human being than material comfort, more than success, more even than national spirit or patriotism. That in any being worthy of being human there is also a demand for justice, for liberty, and that justice needs the evidence of all our lives, liberty is one and indivisible and collective, and no one can talk of justice solely for expediency's sake, nor of liberty while human beings, anywhere else on earth, are still in bondage.
-- Han Suyin -
It is a fact beyond question that there are two kinds of Christian experience, one of which is an experience of bondage, and the other an experience of liberty.
-- Hannah Whitall Smith -
I have always compared our traditions of liberty, like those of Abraham Lincoln and Ho Chi Minh.
-- Hanoi Hannah -
A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property - an unpaid tax bill.
-- Hans F. Sennholz -
History teaches us that there have been but few infringements of personal liberty by the state which have not been justified, as they are here, in the name of righteousness and the public good, and few which have not been directed, as they are now, at politically helpless minorities.
-- Harlan F. Stone -
No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.
-- Harold Laski -
Without equality, I say, there cannot be liberty.
-- Harold Laski -
Those who know the normal life of the poor... will realize well enough that without economic security, liberty is not worth having.
-- Harold Laski -
I started with this idea in my head, "There's two things I've got a right to, death or liberty."
-- Harriet Tubman -
The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk".
-- Harry Browne -
A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.
-- Harry Browne -
Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.
-- Harry Browne -
Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.
-- Harry Browne -
It's wrong for someone to confiscate your money, give it to someone else, and call that "compassion."
-- Harry Browne -
A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out.
-- Harry Browne -
I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.
-- Harry Browne
