Free Society Quotes - Page 4

• Perhaps Vanderbilt's most important role in the interest of our free society is to give the world educated men and women of character, possessing a fundamental integrity that affects both their thoughts and their actions.

  Joe B Wyatt

  Integrity, Character, Men

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• We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them.

  Alexander Bickel

  War, Law, Judging

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• The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.

  Roy Hattersley

  Wisdom, Islamic, Ifs And

  The Independent, July 21, 1989.

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• What [he] is apparently objecting to is that not everyone takes his beliefs seriously. Indeed, some don't seem to respect his beliefs at all, and actually poke fun at them. Well, I have news for [him]: that's the nature of a free society. Opinions don't necessarily merit respect; they must earn respect in the marketplace of ideas.

  Jeffrey Shallit

  Respect, Fun, Ideas

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• Our status as a free society and world power is not based on brute strength. When we've taken up arms, it has been for the defense of freedom for ourselves and for other peaceful nations who needed our help. But now, faced with the development of weapons with immense destructive power, we've no choice but to maintain ready defense forces that are second to none. Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Taken, Choices

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan)., Ronald Reagan, United States. Office of the Federal Register (1983). “Ronald Reagan”

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• If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power conceived by the Framers . . . . Such recognition will not come from a technical understanding of the organs of government, or the new forms of wealth they administer. It requires something different, something deeper-a personal confrontation with the wellsprings of our society.

  William J. Brennan

  Government, Understanding, Different

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• We live in a democracy. We have this extraordinary opportunity to use our mind and say what we think, speak as we think. Sometimes what we say is objectionable to other people. But that is part of a free society

  Hal Holbrook

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

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• The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

  Ron Paul

  People, Moral, Justified

  Farewell Address to the U.S. Congress, delivered 14 November 2012

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• The concept of equal pay for equal work is not only an impossible task, it can only be accomplished with the total rejection of the idea of the voluntary contract... The idea that a businessman must hire anyone and is prevented from firing anyone for any reason he chooses, and in the name of rights, is a clear indication that the basic concept of a free society has been lost.

  Ron Paul

  Equal Pay, Names, Ideas

  "Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution After 200 Years". Book by Ron Paul, 1987.

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• I'm against ObamaCare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.... I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering... I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.

  Newt Gingrich

  Thinking, Engineering, Wings

  "One-on-one with Newt Gingrich". "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. May 15, 2011.

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• A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates.

  Archibald Cox

  Government, Self, Law

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• Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Wall, Religion

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• I repeat to you-my own view is, is that if a State-if people decide to-what they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It's a free society, but it doesn't mean we have to redefine traditional marriage.

  George W. Bush

  Mean, Gay, Views

  George W. Bush “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, George W. Bush, 2004, Book 2, July 1 to September 30, 2004”, Government Printing Office

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• I'm mindful in a free society that people can worship if they want to or not. You're equally an American if you choose to worship an almighty and if you choose not to.

  George W. Bush

  People, Presidential, Atheism

  Third Presidential Debate, www.washingtonpost.com. October 13, 2004.

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• Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks - drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high. Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.

  Mark Steyn

  Fall, Home, Opportunity

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• Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Taken, Government, Support

  "On Freedom of Speech and the Press". Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette, November 17, 1737.

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• Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free
  society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation.

  James Bryant Conant

  Loyalty, Diversity, Society

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• The draft is a monstrous violation of individual liberty, and even a good motive cannot make it otherwise. In a free society no one should be compelled to take up arms, or be forced to kill or risk being killed... But who can blame prospective volunteers from doubting that there is a threat from Iraq? The Bush administration has yet to make a persuasive argument to that effect.

  Sheldon Richman

  Iraq, Volunteer, Risk

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• To be human, at the most profound level, is to encounter honestly the inescapable circumstances that constrain us, yet muster the courage to struggle compassionately for our own unique individualities and for more democratic and free societies.

  Cornel West

  Struggle, Unique, Profound

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• In a free society, there comes a time when the truth - however hard it may be to hear, however impolitic it may seem to say - must be told.

  Al Gore

  Truth, May, There Comes A Time

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• Yes, authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom or the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society. The Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of life means the perpetuation of power.

  Emma Goldman

  Mean, Majority, Coercion

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.42, 谷月社

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• Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery.

  Milton Friedman

  Political, Typical, Misery

  Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.9, University of Chicago Press

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• People getting rich in a free society in general - with some scammy exceptions, which are rare - makes everyone else richer, too.

  Ben Stein

  People, Rich, Exception

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• We're a free society; we've got television. We have radio. We have newspapers. We have the videocassette, which is coming into play. These are new freedoms.

  Ray Bradbury

  Play, Television, Radio

  Ray Bradbury, Steven L. Aggelis (2004). “Conversations with Ray Bradbury”, p.128, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance.

  Sam Harris

  Tolerance, Limits, Claims

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