Popular quotes about Liberty! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.
Theodore RooseveltThe distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.
Edmund BurkeWe have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.
Reinhold NiebuhrReligion and liberty are inseparable. Religion is voluntary, and cannot, and ought not to be forced. This is a fundamental article of the American creed, without distinction of sect or party. Liberty, both civil and religious, is an American instinct. Such liberty is impossible on the basis of a union of church and state, where the one of necessity restricts or controls the other. It requires a friendly separation, where each power is entirely independent in its own sphere.
Philip SchaffIt equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
Alexander HamiltonLiberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
Robert Green IngersollThere is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.
Henry Ward BeecherTrade liberty for safety or money and you'll end up with neither. Liberty, like a grain of salt, easily dissolves. The power of questioning - not simply believing - has no friends. Yet liberty depends on it.
Thomas JeffersonTrue freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us
D. A. CarsonThe Statue of Liberty means everything. We take it for granted today. We take it for granted. Remember the Statue of Liberty stands for what America is. We as Democrats have to remind ourselves and remind the country the great principles we stand for. This is a place of protection. This is not a country of bullies. We are not an empire. We are the light. We are the Statue of Liberty.
Jerry SpringerIt's just like when Trump made his speech, his commencement speech at Liberty University, I saw something that I've never seen. ABC News was there, and they're running around asking the parents of students at Liberty University what about Donald Trump they don't like. Are you upset that Trump is here? Do you ever remember any such reporting at an Barack Obama or Michelle Obama commencement? Of course not. And Trump was loved and adored at this thing, and he had some great things to say.
Rush Limbaugh[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
John RawlsThose who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety.
Benjamin FranklinWhenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.
Lord ActonPaul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's... But how does the great apostle spend his time in prison?... We read of no dispatches sent to court to procure his liberty; but many to the churches, to help them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free... The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan's prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth.
William GurnallCivil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.
Alexander HamiltonIn The Federalist, James Madison called the rage for equality 'a wicked project.' People differ and rewards differ-that's the essence of both liberty and justice. No nation that rewards effort, talent, inventiveness and luck can even pretend to cherish equal outcomes. In an inventive and dynamic society, equal (even relatively equal) incomes can be achieved only by abandoning liberty for tyranny.
Michael NovakAnd now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works
Frederic BastiatThe case for trade is not just monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy.
George W. BushIn Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.
James MadisonI have an intellectual inclination for democratic institutions, but I am instinctively an aristocrat, which means that I despise and fear the masses. I passionately love liberty, legality, the respect for rights, but not democracy....liberty is my foremost passion. That is the truth.
Alexis de TocquevilleLiberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
Charles Caleb ColtonAgainst us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.
Thomas JeffersonNo free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.
Wendell PhillipsWhen the People contend for their Liberty, they seldom get anything by their Victory but new masters. Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good Terms.
Sir George Savile, 8th BaronetAnd what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, or labor, or trade?
Frederic BastiatThe liberty of the press is dear to England; the licentiousness of the press is odious to England: the liberty of it can never be so well protected as by beating down the licentiousness.
Sherrilyn KenyonThis ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe. at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together.
Thomas JeffersonIs it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty-that in such an age and in such a country we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty?
Patrick HenryLiberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and, on for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.
Miguel de CervantesAny nation which for an extended period puts pleasure before liberty is likely to lose the liberty it misused.
Aiden Wilson TozerLiberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
Francis BaconLiberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph.
Honore de BalzacIt is true that liberty is not free, nor is it easy. But tyranny - even varying degrees of it - is much more difficult, and much more expensive. The time has come to rein in the federal government, put it on a crash diet, and let the people keep their money and their liberty.
Ron PaulThe victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty; but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
Will DurantThe taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things.
Alexis de TocquevilleThere are few things in politics more annoying than the Right's utter conviction that it owns the patent on the word 'freedom' that when its leaders stand up for the rights of banks to be unregulated or capital gains to be untaxed, that it is actually and obviously standing up for human liberty, the noblest cause of them all.
Thomas FrankThere can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
Walter LippmannCondemn no man for not thinking as you think. Let every one enjoy the full and free liberty of thinking for himself. Let every man use his own judgment, since every man must give an account of himself to God. Abhor every approach, in any kind or degree, to the spirit of persecution, if you cannot reason nor persuade a man into the truth, never attempt to force a man into it. If love will not compel him to come, leave him to God, the judge of all.
John WesleyDo people really want liberty, equality, fraternity? Is it not some manner of speaking?
Krzysztof KieslowskiI don't know how you feel, my brethren and sisters, but I'd rather be dead than to lose my liberty. I have no fear we'll ever lose it because of invasion from the outside. But I do have fear that it may slip away from us because of our own indifference, our own negligence, as citizens of this land. And so I plead with you this morning that you take an active interest in matters pertaining to the future of this country.
Ezra Taft BensonWe Gentiles owe our life to Israel. It is Israel who has brought us the message that God is one, and that God is a just and righteous God, and demands righteousness of his children, and demands nothing else. It is Israel who has brought us the message that God is our Father. It is Israel who, in bringing us the divine law, has laid the foundation of liberty.
Lyman AbbottMake your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
Michel de Montaigne