Limited Freedom Quotes

• One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

  Plato

  Plato, War, Government

  276 Copy quote

• Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Life, Sarcastic

  Quoted in Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

  506 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Law, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have sworn upon the altar of god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Faith Religion

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

  William O. Douglas

  Teaching, Rights In America, Political Revolution

  "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

  C. S. Lewis

  Libertarian Party, Democracies Have, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wisdom, Powerful, Freedom

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.3

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Fall, Errors, Government

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Tyrants, Libertarian Party, Thought Provoking

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.94, Beacon Press

  146 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

  James Madison

  Patriotic, Men, Law

  The Federalist no. 62 (1788).

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Peace, War, Home

  Douglas MacArthur's address to the Annual Stockholders Sperry Rand Corporation in New York (July 30, 1957) as quoted in "General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964" edited by Edward T. Imparato (p. 206), June 14, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

  James Madison

  Power, Men, Liberty

  The Federalist no. 51 (1788)

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Peace, War, Patriotic

  Douglas MacArthur's address to the Annual Stockholders Sperry Rand Corporation in New York (July 30, 1957) as quoted in "General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964" edited by Edward T. Imparato (p. 206), June 14, 2000.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

  William Allen White

  Memorial Day, Libertarian Party, Giving

  43 Copy quote

• 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”

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  109 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Humor, Thinking

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut”, p.228, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters

  Daniel Webster

  Mean, Men, Gun

  Daniel Webster, James Rees (1839). “The beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: selected and arranged, with a critical essay on his genius and writings”, p.30

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• That government is best which governs least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.

  Tacitus

  Peace, Freedom, War

  "Annals". Book by Tacitus, Book III, 27,

  115 Copy quote

  Show source

• I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

  James Madison

  Government, Liberty, Politics

  "Time Magazine: We Don't Need No Stinking Constitution" by Larry Elder, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 7, 2011.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Liberty and Equality"

  179 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

  Learned Hand

  Love, Freedom, Hate

  "The Spirit of Liberty" (speech), New York, N.Y., 21 May 1944

  18 Copy quote

  Show source