On Liberty Quotes

What gave transcendent importance to the aggressiveness of power was the fact that its natural prey, its necessary victim, was liberty, or law, or right.

Religion and liberty are inseparable. Religion is voluntary, and cannot and ought not to be forced.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

To open his lips is crime in a plain citizen.

In order that a people may be free, it is necessary that the governed be sages, and those who govern, gods.

Individual liberty, the basic underpinning of American society, requires constant defense against the encroachment of the state.

[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.

Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

The hungry and the homeless don't care about liberty any more than they care about cultural heritage. To pretend that they do care is cant.

Liberty is the right to do what I like; licence, the right to do what you like.

It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.

It is the essence of the institutions of liberty that it be recognized that guilt is personal and cannot be attributed to the holding of opinions or to mere intent in the absence of overt acts.

It was so cold in New York City today that the Statue of Liberty had her torch under her dress.

The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please.

Terrorists can only take my life. Only my government can take my freedom.

Not observation of a duty but liberty itself is the pledge that assures fidelity.

It may be that this autobiography [Aimee Semple McPherson's] is set down in sincerity, frankness, and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!

Our doctrine of equality and liberty and humanity comes from our belief in the brotherhood of man, through the fatherhood of God.

The human race is in the best condition when it has the greatest degree of liberty.

A right without an attendant responsibility is as unreal as a sheet of paper which has only one side.

Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.

Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man.

If I can go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

China has to go along with world trends. That's democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

His kisses tapped into deep mines of memory, and the years that had separated us fell away as if they were nothing.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

The Open Road goes to the used-car lot.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

The more liberty you give away the more you will have.

He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!

Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind.

There are temptations more attractive than angels. Liberty, Patriotism, the good of humanity – words like that are the silver scales of the Tempter’s flaming wings

In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.