Liberty Quotes and Sayings
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.
The advancement of science and the diffusion of information is the best aliment to true liberty.
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Liberty is worth paying for.
Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.
But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, 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.
Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.
Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.
Liberty is only possible on the condition of regularity. We cannot be free and play the game of life without abiding to the rules, but the rules have to be adapted constantly in line with our experiences and the events we encounter.
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
While a people preserves its language; it preserves the marks of liberty.
Liberty and equality are captivating sounds, but they often captivate to destroy.
United States: the country where liberty is a statue.
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.
The truth is that men are tired of liberty.
Peace is liberty in tranquillity.
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
In our struggle between liberty and destiny, we must never stop challenging the masterminds of fate that tries to deconstruct the stepping stones of our freedom.
Socialism values equality more than liberty.
It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.
I value liberty above all else. Without liberty, no other value can be realized.
My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.
The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.
Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.
Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.
Our liberty will not be secured at the sword's point... We must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.
Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
As man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his own rights, he begins to value the rights of others. And when all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.
Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Liberty is not an end, but a means. Whoever mistakes it for an end does not know what to do once he attains it.
In short justice is another name of liberty, equality and fraternity.
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men. I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.
The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.
Just as war is the natural consequence of monopoly, peace is the natural consequence of liberty.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Perfect Liberty follows no rules, law, or any virtue for that matter. It disregards respect, courteousness, and love.
One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
Give me liberty or give me death.
A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation from others, and thus affords them the possibility of dignity. They loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, and thus confronts them with the possibility of insignificance.
Like many others, I grew up in an age that preached liberty and built slave camps.
Life and Liberty are secure only so long as the Igor of property is secure.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.
The Pledge of Allegiance says, 'liberty and justice for all'.
Collective action remains the best way of renewing the march towards the great trinity of liberty, equality, and solidarity.
Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.
I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit.
We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.
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