Liberty Quotes - Page 19

• Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Integrity, Men

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Slavery, May

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• My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

  Edmund Burke

  Spirit, Pardon

  Edmund Burke (1948). “Selected Prose”

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• If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.

  Karl Marx

  Cutting, People, Libertarian

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• It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Real, War

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.49, University of Virginia Press

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• Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Memorial Day, Freedom

  Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961

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  The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Peace, War, Government

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.82

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• Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

  Henry Adams

  Responsibility, Ignoring Facts, Absence

  Henry Adams (1986). “Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres”, p.30, Penguin

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• Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

  John Adams

  Names, Hypocrisy, Suffering

  "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" by John Adams, teachingamericanhistory.org. 1765.

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• And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works

  Frederic Bastiat

  Should Have, Trying, May

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• As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends.

  Otto Hermann Kahn

  House, Autocracy, Twin Brother

  Otto Hermann Kahn (1918). “Frenzied Liberty: The Myth of "a Rich Man's War"”

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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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• There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Differences, People, World

  "Individualism: True and False" by Friedrich Hayek, 1945.

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• Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure.

  William Ernest Hocking

  Men, Libertarian, Secure

  William Ernest Hocking (1948). “Freedom of the Press”

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• What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms...

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Army, Gun

  "Lincoln on Democracy" by Abraham Lincoln, G. S. Boritt, Fordham University Press, (p. 128), September 1, 2004.

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• Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money.

  Joseph Sobran

  People, Greed, Political

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• He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.

  Epictetus

  Fall, Wish, Desire

  Epictetus (2009). “The Enchiridion, or Handbook: With A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus”, p.172, The Floating Press

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• War is just one more big government program.

  Joseph Sobran

  War, Government, Libertarian

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• The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority. It is the one guaranty of human freedom to the American people.

  Frank I. Cobb

  Freedom, Rights, People

  La Follette's Weekly Magazine, 1920.

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• Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, War, Party

  Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (222), 1956.

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• Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Suffering, Libertarian

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• There is a word sweeter than mother, home or heaven. That word is liberty.

  Matilda Joslyn Gage

  Mom, Mother, Sweet

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1979). “History of Woman Suffrage”, Ayer Company Pub

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  The essential notion of a capitalist society ... is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.

  Milton Friedman

  Essentials, Libertarian, Cooperation

  Milton Friedman, William Richard Allen (1983). “Bright promises, dismal performance: an economist's protest”, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.

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• Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Freedom, Sacrifice, Civil Liberties

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