Liberty Quotes
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Real liberty exists only there where exploitation has been annihilated, where no oppression of some peoples by others exists, where there is no unemployment and pauperism, where a person does not tremble because tomorrow he may lose his job, home and bread.
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Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . . It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs.
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In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just.
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For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?
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By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.
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Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
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Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.
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Call me a flaming radical burning for attention, but my real intention is to spark a discussion of how we can peacefully transform our world. America, I offer myself to you as an alarm against Armageddon and a torch for liberty.
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A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident risks an even larger loss of life and liberty.
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You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.
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But on the other hand government takes away a certain amount of liberty and in some countries it takes away all of liberty. And it will, everywhere, if people who fight government do not fight government any longer.
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Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil and, if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty.
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When a “founding father’s” remarks about “liberty” don’t seem to make sense, substitute the word “property” and they do.
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The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government.
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But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.
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I feel constricted if I become too much aware of the act of making. Liberty is lost and instead of an instinctual lyrical expression the whole thing becomes arid.
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As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.
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Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.
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I testify to you that God's hand has been in our destiny. I testify that freedom as we know it today is being threatened as never before in our history. I further witness that this land-the Americas-must be protected, its Constitution upheld, for this is a land foreordained to be the Zion of our God. He expects us as members of the Church and bearers of His priesthood to do all we can to preserve our liberty.
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And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants.
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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
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A people may prefer a free government, but if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers to subvert their institutions, in all these cases they are unfit for liberty.
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Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty.
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What we must remember, however, is that preservation of liberties does not depend on motives. A suppression of liberty has the same effect whether the suppressor be a reformer or an outlaw. The only protection against misguided zeal is constant alertness to infractions of the guarantees of liberty contained in our Constitution. Each surrender of liberty to the demands of the moment makes easier another, larger surrender. . .
