American Liberty Quotes - Page 3

• The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Mean, People, Civil War

  Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Md., 18 Apr. 1864

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• No matter how much of our liberty Washington takes away in the name of security, there are no guarantees that there won't be another terrorist attack. Instead of attacking American liberties, the government ought to go after terrorists in their countries of origin. It should be like what our military attempted during WWII. Don't wait to defend ships against the kamikaze -- bomb the fields where they take off.

  Walter E. Williams

  Country, Military, Government

  5 Copy quote

• Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have remover their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Bible, God

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 18 (1781 - 1785)

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Freedom, Character, People

  Benjamin Franklin (1840). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.297

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

  John Adams

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

  Patrick Henry

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Blessing

  100 Copy quote

• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Business, 4th Of July

  126 Copy quote

• While Democrats fussed with the details of health care reforms, conservatives spent months telling the nation that the real issue is freedom, that what's on the line is American liberty itself.

  Thomas Frank

  Real, Issues, Liberty

  "The Left Should Reclaim ‘Freedom’" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 16, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Evil, Liberty

  Edmund Burke (2005). “Burke, Select Works”, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

  Norman Thomas

  Freedom, Names, Usa

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  165 Copy quote

  Show source

• Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

  George Washington

  Military, War, 4th Of July

  27 Copy quote

• The widespread distribution of private property ownership is the cornerstone of American liberty. Without it neither our free enterprise system nor our republican form of government could long endure.... The next Republican Administration will...not only protect the cherished human right of property ownership, but will also work to help millions of Americans - particularly those from disadvantaged groups - to share in the ownership of the wealth of their nation.

  Jeffrey H Reiman

  Wisdom, Government, Long

  4 Copy quote

• The widespread distribution of private property ownership is the cornerstone of American liberty. Without it, neither our free enterprise system nor our republican form of government could long endure.

  Jeffrey H Reiman

  Wisdom, Government, Long

  5 Copy quote

• Without Virginia, as we must all acknowledge--without her Patrick Henry among the people, her Lees and Jefferson in the forum, and her Washington in the field--I will not say that the cause of American liberty and American independence must have been ultimately defeated--no, no, there was no ultimate defeat for that cause in the decrees of the Most High; but it must have been delayed, postponed, perplexed, and to many eyes and hearts rendered seemingly hopeless.

  Robert Charles Winthrop

  Heart, Eye, Virginia

  Robert Charles Winthrop (1876). “Oration on the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: Delivered in the Music Hall, at the Request of the City Government, Boston, 4 July, 1876”, p.22

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Patriotic, Tyrants, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.268

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• American liberty is a religion. It is a thing of the spirit.

  Wendell Willkie

  Liberty, Spirit

  4 Copy quote

• Bad men cannot make good citizens.

  Patrick Henry

  Men, Tyrants, Citizens

  16 Copy quote
• 

  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

  342 Copy quote

  Show source

• To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

  James Madison

  Government, Ideas, People

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.24, University of Virginia Press

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" . . . If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?

  John Adams

  Passion, Differences, People

  John Adams, Daniel LEONARD, Jonathan SEWALL (1819). “Novanglus and Massachusettensis; or, political essays, published in ... 1774 and 1775, on the principal points of controversy, between Great Britain and her colonies; the former by John Adams ... the latter by Jonathan Sewall [or rather, Daniel Leonard] ... To which are added a number of letters lately written by President Adams to the Hon. William Tudor, etc”, p.11

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Americans' liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power. Federal, state and local government's are confiscating citizens' property, trampling their rights, and decimating their opportunities more than ever before.... American liberty can still be rescued from the encroachments of government. The first step to saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose unless fundamental political changes occur.

  James Bovard

  Opportunity, Rights, Government

  4 Copy quote

• I believe in the support of the public school as one of the cornerstones of American liberty. I believe in the right of every parent to choose whether his child shall be educated in the public school or in a religious school supported by those of his own faith.

  Al Smith

  Religious, Children, Believe

  7 Copy quote

• Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Inspiration, People

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2547, Library of Alexandria

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror.

  George Pataki

  War, Fighting, Freedom Of Speech

  "Lenny Bruce Posthumously Pardoned" by wenn.com, December 24, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• American liberty is being destroyed by Marxist doctrines that explain society in terms of hegemonic and oppressed groups - whether classes, races or genders - fighting for suzerainty. In these societies spun out of Marxist theorizing, good will does not exist, only the material interests of warring groups. Morality resides in the oppressed, but if the oppressed succeed in becoming hegemonic, their claim to moral supremacy evaporates.

  Paul Craig Roberts

  Fighting, Class, Race

  7 Copy quote