Individual Freedom Quotes - Page 2

• Utopians...consider individual freedom as the stumbling block on which the grandiose idea of mankind's totalization may flounder.

  Thomas Steven Molnar

  Block, Ideas, May

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• Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Freedom, Military, 4th Of July

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• The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.

  Ronald Reagan

  Heart, Soul, Libertarian

  Reason magazine, July 1, 1975.

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• True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Country, Spring, Patriotic

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1962). “Book of common sense etiquette”

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• Is the American tradition of self-reliance disappearing? That's a painful question for conservatives to ponder. After all, we're dedicated to reducing the role of government and promoting individual freedom and opportunity. But the facts, while sad, are clear: More Americans today depend more heavily on government than ever before.

  Edwin Feulner

  Opportunity, Government, Self

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• I really didn't know much about the Libertarians. I knew they were for less government and more individual freedom. I liked that.

  Howard Stern

  Government, Libertarian, Individual

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• Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.

  John Paul Stevens

  Majority, Speak, Individual

  John Paul Stevens, University of Chicago. Law School (1992). “The Bill of Rights: a century of progress”

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• f you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals - if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

  Ronald Reagan

  Believe, Heart, Thinking

  "Reason" Magazine, July 1, 1975.

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• In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.

  Ai Weiwei

  Passion, Independent, Rights

  "Ai Weiwei: 'China's art world does not exist'". www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2012.

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• How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country.

  Dean Acheson

  Country, Usa, Champion

  "Civil Rights in the USA, 1863-1980". Book by David Paterson, Susan Willoughby, Doug Willoughby, 2001.

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• Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty, and ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society.

  Ronald Reagan

  Dream, Father, Government

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches”, p.212, Simon and Schuster

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• Creation is too grand, complex, and mysterious to be captured in a narrow creed. That is why we cherish individual freedom of belief.

  William F. Schulz

  Belief, Mysterious, Cherish

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• Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Victory, Liberty, Gains

  "The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary". American Bar Association Journal, Volume 39, No. 11, p. 964, www.jstor.org. November 1953.

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• I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism.

  William E. Gladstone

  Design, Effort, Independence

  "In the Golden Days". Book by F. W. Hirst, 1947.

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• To reverse the trend and reduce the role of government in our lives, and thus alleviate the government deficit and inflation pressures, is a giant educational task. The social and economic ideas that gave birth to the transfer system must be discredited and replaced with old values of individual independence and self-reliance. The social philosophy of individual freedom and unhampered private property must again be our guiding light.

  Hans F. Sennholz

  Educational, Philosophy, Self

  Hans F. Sennholz (1979). “Age of inflation”

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• France placed the state above society , democracy above constitutionalism, and equality above liberty. As a result, for much of the nineteenth century it was democratic, with broad suffrage and elections, but hardly liberal. it was certainly a less secure home for individual freedom than was England or America.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Home, America, Democracy

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• There is no free society without silence, without the internal and external spaces of solitude in which the individual freedom can develop.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Space, Silence, Solitude

  Herbert Marcuse (2004). “The New Left and the 1960s: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse”, p.117, Routledge

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• Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Spiritual, Mean, Government

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• The European community of values is unique: It combines democracy with the market economy, individual freedoms with social justice. How can we expect the U.S. or China to defend these values, this one-of-a-kind European balancing act that has developed over the course of decades?

  Emmanuel Macron

  Unique, Justice, Community

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Marriage would change hardly anything between us, except that we would end our arguments in a much more satisfying way. And of course I would have extensive legal rights over your body, your property, and all your individual freedoms, but I don't see what's so alarming about that.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Rights, Body, Way

  Lisa Kleypas (2010). “Married by Morning”, p.252, St. Martin's Press

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• While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Rights, Essentials

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• I start ... from a belief in individual freedom and that derives fundamentally from a belief in the limitations of our knowledge, from a belief ... that nobody can be sure that what he believes is right, is really right ... I'm an imperfect human being who cannot be certain of anything, so what position ... involved the least intolerance on my part? ... The most attractive position ... is putting individual freedom first.

  Milton Friedman

  Freedom, Believe, Firsts

  Interview with Tibor Machan, Joe Cobb, Ralph Raico, reason.com. December 1974.

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• Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Men, Saving, Paradise

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• We are resolved to protect individual freedom of belief. This freedom must include the child as well as the parent. The freedom for which we stand is not freedom of belief as we please,... not freedom to evade responsibility, ...but freedom to be honest in speech and action, freedom to respect one's own integrity of thought and feeling, freedom to question, to investigate, to try, to understand life and the universe in which life abounds, freedom to search anywhere and everywhere to find the meaning of Being, freedom to experiment with new ways of living that seem better than the old.

  Sophia Lyon Fahs

  Children, Integrity, Responsibility

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• By 1980, we knew it was time to renew our faith, to strive with all our strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society. We believed then and now there are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams.

  Ronald Reagan

  Dream, War, Men

  Second Inaugural Address, delivered 21 January 1985, Rotunda of the Capitol, Washington D.C.

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