Liberty quotes
2.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another mans right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar."
"The Cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats."
"If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions."
"I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old."
"What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of Slavery?"
"There is no freedom on earth or in any star for those who deny freedom to others."
"They do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere."
"Mother Liberty caresses with generous affections...[those] who, armed with the weapons of high-minded honesty,...have grasped that the freedom of each is rooted in the freedom of all."
"We forget that, although each of the liberties which have been won must be defended with utmost vigour, the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedom, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self; to have faith in this self and in life."
"We do not move forward by curtailing people's liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say."
"Our contemporary Tories prefer the term 'ordered liberty' to 'freedom'. The word 'freedom' scares them; it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it."
"To subject every private family to the odious visits and examination of the tax-gatherers ... would be altogether inconsistent with liberty."
"Laws without morals are in vain."
"Those who are willing to forfeit liberty for security will have neither."
"Governments having failed the people, the people are entirely justified in assuming for themselves an essential role in government. Where a government takes proper measures to protect the people under its care, such a proceeding might have been thought both unnecessary and unjustifiable: But here it is quite the Reverse."
"Where security exists, liberty and opportunity do not."
"Those who give up liberty for the sake of security, deserve neither liberty nor security."
"Those who prefer security to liberty deserve neither."
"And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief."
"Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety."
