Liberty And Justice Quotes

• Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Justice, Liberty

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.503, Penguin

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• Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Government, Law

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Politics

  Martin D. Tullai, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln”

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, War, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate, you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

  Winston Churchill

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Winston Churchill (1986). “The Gathering Storm”, p.312, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Change, Men, Law

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• What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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  Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

  Samuel Adams

  Rights, Liberty, Together

  Samuel Adams (1946). “Samuel Adams: selections from his writings”

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  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Witty

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• The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Democracy, Apathy

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• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, History

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) See Edmund Burke 28; Mill 18

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• Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?

  Alexander Hamilton

  Law, Littles, Action

  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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• The makers of our Constitution . . . conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Men, Law Courts, Rights

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928) See Brandeis 1

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• To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Mean, Government, Order

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Teacher, Mean, Men

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Mean, Men, Political

  Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375, 1927.

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  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

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• What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Nature, Patriotic, Angel

  1788 The Federalist, Jan.

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• The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Hero, People

  Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law (2006). “Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration”

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  Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

  Barry Goldwater

  Memorial Day, Freedom, Gay

  Speech accepting nomination for president at Republican National Convention, San Francisco, Cal., 16 July 1964

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