On Liberty Quotes

The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.

Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an inalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken.

When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen.

All the nations of the earth are crying out for liberty and equality. Away, away with tyranny and oppression!

The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.

In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree.

I therefore take the liberty of proposing for this hypothetical new atom, which is not light but plays an essential part in every process of radiation, the name photon.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

I am an anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule and also ruled I will not be.

How could liberty ever establish itself amongst us? Apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.

A flirt is like a dipper attached to a hydrant; every one is at liberty to drink from it, but no one desires to carry it away.

T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

Freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die.

The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.'

Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

How I longed to see these things; how I longed to see the Liberty Bell and walk on the streets where Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin had walked.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

This is America. We must defend the principles symbolized by Lady Liberty - unless she's on the pill, in which case, she is a giant green tramp.

There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.

True liberty is not liberty to do evil as well as good.

The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.

Let there be light! Said Liberty , And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.

The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.

I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10-mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe.

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

In the American colonies, the main problem of liberty has been solved, demonstrated and practiced in such a manner as not to leave much to be said by European institutions.

In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur.

There is one good thing about Marx: he was not a Keynesian.

If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.

Travel the world, learn other languages, demand liberty, despise violence, read books, and keep a dictionary nearby.