American Liberty Quotes - Page 2

• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Government, Political

  Letter to Archibald Stewart, 23 Dec. 1791

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• These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

  Thomas Paine

  Love, Summer, Country

  The American Crisis, 19 Dec. 1776

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• I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

  John Adams

  Education, Philosophy, War

  John Adams (2003). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.264, Penguin

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• 

  The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

  Thomas Paine

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Thomas Paine (1817). “The Political Works of Thomas Paine: In Two Volumes”

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• As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Freedom, Humor

  "Definition of Democracy," ca. 1 Aug. 1858

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• A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Rights, Law

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.118

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• Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

  William O. Douglas

  Teaching, Rights In America, Political Revolution

  "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

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• Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

  Edmund Burke

  Long, People, Political

  'Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol' (1777) p. 71

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• Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

  James Madison

  Patriotic, Power, Presidential

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• Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

  James Madison

  Country, Gun, Government

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• The most important fact about American liberty is that it has never been a single idea, but a set of different and even contrary traditions in creative tension with one another. This diversity of libertarian ideas has created a culture of freedom which is more open and expansive than any unitary tradition alone could possibly be.

  David Hackett Fischer

  Ideas, Diversity, Creative

  David Hackett Fischer (1991). “Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America”, p.537, Oxford University Press

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• What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

  Thomas Paine

  Inspirational, Perseverance, Motivation

  Thomas Paine (2011). “Thomas Paine on Liberty: Including Common Sense and Other Writings”, p.80, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Years, People, Needs

  Letter to the Abbés Chalut and Arnaud, April 17, 1787.

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• For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders.

  Samuel Adams

  Patriotic, People, Ignorant

  "Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814".

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• 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.

  George Mason

  Freedom, Blessing, Government

  Virginia Declaration of Rights (Article 15), June 12, 1776.

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• [Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, Liberty, Duration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.55

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• Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Patriotism, Liberty, Civil Rights

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Mean, Thinking, Government

  Benjamin Franklin (1839). “Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin”, p.85

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• Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pregnancy, Liberty, Ethics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.11

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• The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

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• The laws of economics tell us that the expansion of the central state can't go on forever. Its limit is reached when the looted turn on the looters. And that's beginning to happen. More than six decades of hard work for American liberty beginning with the Old Right opposition to the Roosevelt Revolution and continuing with the Mises Institute, is beginning to bear fruit.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Hard Work, Law, Forever

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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

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