Freedom And Liberty Quotes - Page 6

• Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wisdom, Religious, Freedom

  "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment". "God in the Dock". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1970.

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• Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.

  Daniel Webster

  Strong, Real, Gun

  Daniel Webster (1854). “The speeches of Daniel Webster and his master-pieces”, p.282

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• The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Liberty, Resistance, Political Freedom

  Speech to New York Press Club in New York, 9 Sept. 1912, in Papers of Woodrow Wilson (1978) vol. 25, p. 124

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• Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

  John Locke

  Freedom, War, People

  John Locke (1947). “Two Treatises of Government: With a Supplement, Patriarcha, by Robert Filmer”, p.233, Simon and Schuster

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• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

  "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)

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• It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Law, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

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• We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter.

  Abba Kovner

  Freedom, Taken, Patriotic

  "Freedom fighters" by Andrew Pulver, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2001.

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• Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

  Ronald Reagan

  Veterans Day, Freedom, Our Veterans

  Labor Day Address at Liberty State Park, delivered 1 September 1980, Jersey City, New Jersey

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• It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Fall, Errors, Government

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

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• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Freedom, Giving Up

  Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784

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• If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Adversity, Angel, Men

  The Federalist no. 51 (1788)

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• The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, Freedom, War

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• Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Gun, British Rule In India

  Mahatma Gandhi, General Press (2014). “My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.681, GENERAL PRESS

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• Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

  Milton Friedman

  Army, Jail, Alcohol

  "An Open Letter to Bill Bennett". Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989.

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Inspiring, Women, 4th Of July

  Declaration of Sentiments, First Woman's Rights

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• Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.

  Benjamin Franklin

  4th Of July, Liberty, Wealth

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.17, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.

  Andre Gide

  Freedom, Liberty, Know How

  Andre Gide (2015). “The Immoralist”, p.8, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

  John F. Kennedy

  Education, Freedom, Learning

  Vanderbilt University 90th Anniversary Convocation Address, delivered 18 May 1963, Vanderbilt University Stadium, Nashville Tennessee

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• The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

  John Adams

  Freedom, Writing, Power

  A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765)

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• A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

  Samuel Adams

  America, Enemy, Liberty

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1778-1802”

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• The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

  George Washington

  4th Of July, Destiny, Government

  First Inaugural Address, New York, N.Y., 30 Apr. 1789

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• Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

  James Madison

  Ambition, Simple, Government

  James Madison, John Jay (1847). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.192

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• It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it

  James Madison

  Exercise, America, Waiting

  James Madison (1999). “Writings”

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• A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

  Ramsey Clark

  Rights, Libertarian Party, Giving

  1977 In the NewYork Times, 2 Oct.

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• There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah - get first all the people's money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Kings, Children, Land

  Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin ...”, p.385

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