Liberty Quotes
-
But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.
William O. Douglas
-
The State is the curse of the individual... The State must go! That will be a revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the State, set up in its place spontaneous action, and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity, and you will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth possessing.
Henrik Ibsen
-
Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.
William O. Douglas
-
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
H. L. Mencken
-
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.
William Cowper
-
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.
Ezra Taft Benson
-
I will tell you whom to vote for: We will vote for the principles of civil and religious liberty, the man who knows the most and who has the best heart and brain for a statesman; and we do not care a farthing whether he is a Whig, a Democrat, a Barnburner, a Republican, or a New Light or anything else.
Brigham Young
-
In my opinion, patriotism is liberty.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
-
Individual liberty, the basic underpinning of American society, requires constant defense against the encroachment of the state.
Paul Singer
-
. . .nothing is more important than freedom. Nothing is more sacred than freedom. Nothing is greater than freedom. Nothing. . .can be permitted to stand in the way of freedom. Freedom. . .is all that makes men great. It is all men have to live for. Without freedom, what good is life?
Allen Drury
-
The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.
Thomas Sowell
-
The old terms must be invented with new meaning and given new explanations. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer what they were in the days of the late-lamented guillotine. This is what the politicians will not understand; and that is why I hate them. They want only their own special revolutions- external revolutions, political revolutions, etc. But that is only dabbling. What is really needed is a revolution of the human spirit.
Henrik Ibsen
-
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
-
The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.
William Ellery Channing
-
When governments claim to derive their authority from any source other than the governed, it always leads to the destruction of liberty.
G. Edward Griffin
-
He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging.
John Locke
Nazareth
-
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves
Thomas Sowell
-
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
William Ellery Channing
-
There can be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanaticism is excessive zeal. There may be, and have been fanatics in false religion; in the bloody religions of the heathen.
Thaddeus Stevens
-
How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible..... There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.
John Ruskin
-
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England.
John Stuart Mill
-
Liberty does not mean being given state sanction to force your own ideas—religious or otherwise—on other people. It does not mean being given a free pass from laws you don't like.
Barry W. Lynn
