"If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded."
Liberty quotes
2.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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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."
"Security without liberty is called prison."
"I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery."
"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
"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 best way to make every one poor is to insist on equality of wealth."
"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon."
"Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience."
"Anytime anyone is enslaved or in any way deprived of his liberty, that person, as a human being, as far as I'm concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again."
"It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received."
"Democracy is the road to socialism."
"Our union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties."
"Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason."
"Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all - liberty!"
"Republicans are horrible with civil liberties, and not so good with dollars and cents. Democrats are horrible with dollars and cents, and not so good with civil liberties."
"To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors."
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy."
"Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds — that we cannot be happy, without being FREE — that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property— that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away — that taxes imposed on us by parliament, do thus take it away."
"Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session."
"The liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation."