Liberty quotes
2.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside liberty — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves. The very working of this economic system, which has bestowed these unprecedented liberties, most cherished in the form of physical mobility and material prosperity, depends on encouraging people to defy limits."
"It's liberty or it's death. It's freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody."
"I think the only way one can really determine whether extremism in the defense of liberty is justified, is not to approach it as an american or a european or an African or an Asian, but as a human being. If we look upon it as different types, immediately we begin to think in terms of extremism being good for one and bad for another, or bad for one and good for another. But if we look upon it, if we look upon ourselves as human beings, I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is no vice."
"The excitement right now is coming from the Liberty movement. And the Republicans want a piece of it."
"Truth and news are not the same thing."
"Discipline must come through liberty."
"Card players have a saying: "It's all right to play if you keep your eyes on the deck" - which is another way of saving, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.""
"The English are probably more capable than most peoples of making revolutionary change without bloodshed. In England, if anywhere,it would be possible to abolish poverty without destroying liberty."
"Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends."
"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing."
"[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue."
"You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket."
"Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations."
"Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. 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."
"..every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. .... The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property."
"It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" the unemployed can have who go hungry and cannot find utilization of their labor."
"Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action."
"To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne."
"After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government."
"If you want a Big Brother, you get all that comes with it."
