Liberty Quotes - Page 11

• However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.

  Herbert Spencer

  Rights, Minorities, Libertarian

  Herbert Spencer (2014). “The Right to Ignore the State”, p.9, The Floating Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Law, Long, Soul

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.42

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body.

  Thomas Szasz

  Father, Men, Ideas

  23 Copy quote

• So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Long, People, Giving

  Marilyn Ferguson (1987). “The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s”, Tarcher

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Money, War, Battle

  Benjamin Franklin, E. Sargent (1855). “The select works of Benjamin Franklin”, p.459

  72 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Sarcastic, Cake, Political

  Benjamin Franklin, Henry Stueber (1838). “The Life and Essays of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Carefully Collected from His Own Papers, Containing All His Miscellaneous Pieces”, p.408

  45 Copy quote

  Show source

• The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Real, Party, Issues

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.78, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself.

  Albert Einstein

  Deception, Poison, Libertarian

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Essays in Humanism”, p.96, Open Road Media

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance.

  John Ruskin

  Wise, Law, Defense

  John Ruskin (1900). “Complete Works”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For libertarians, freedom entails the right of people to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. For conservatives, freedom entails the right of government to do just about anything it wants, even if its conduct is violent.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Government, Libertarian Party, Long

  9 Copy quote

• The more laws and restrictions there are,
  The poorer people become.
  The sharper men's weapons,
  The more trouble in the land.

  Laozi

  Law, People, Libertarian

  "Tao te ching".

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Practice, Libertarian, Theory

  William Lloyd Garrison, Bruce Rogers (1905). “The Words of Garrison: A Centennial Selection (1805-1905) of Characteristic Sentiments from the Writings of William Lloyd Garrison”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• [During the 20th century] ... 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners.

  Rudolph Rummel

  Children, Men, Citizens

  9 Copy quote

• Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Inspirational, Change, Sweet

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2001). “The Essential Galbraith”, p.241, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Government, Analysis, Libertarian

  Woodrow Wilson, Ronald J. Pestritto (2005). “Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings”, p.49, Lexington Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field.

  Wendell Phillips

  Soldier, Victory, Bunker Hill

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.274

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Libertarian, Economic, Program

  "The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism".

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die.

  Robert Burns

  Blow, Usurpers, Dies

  'Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn' (1799)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

  James Madison

  Education, Wisdom, Freedom

  1822; cited in U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots (1975).

  131 Copy quote

  Show source

• The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

  Wendell Phillips

  Men, Prohibition, Given

  13 Copy quote

• Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

  Sallust

  Men, Political, Wish

  28 Copy quote

• Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Frowning, Bosoms, Reliance

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.128, Fordham Univ Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Time, Freedom, Fighting

  "Shut Down Chick-fil-A Properly" by James Peron, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 25, 2012.

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

  George Washington

  Peace, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington (1783). “A circular Letter ... to ... W. Greene, Governor ... of Rhode Island”, p.11

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Government

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17 (1781 - 1785)

  80 Copy quote

  Show source