Best 3053 quotes in «liberty quotes» category

Evil comes in many forms and seems to reinvent itself time and again. But whatever it calls itself - Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, today, terrorism - they all have one thing in common: the destruction, the end of human liberty.

Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty.

Excessive liberty and excessive servitude are equally dangerous, and produce nearly the same effect.

Excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery. [Lat., Nimia libertas et populis et privatis in nimiam servitutem cadit.]

Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice, but I denounce political extremism, of the left or the right, based on duplicity, falsehood, fear, violence and threats when they endanger liberty.

Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

Family - see Fascist State.

Fart for freedom, fart for liberty—and fart proudly.

Far from a simple attempt to rid the nation of crime and drugs, our policy against narcotics -- like any public policy -- comes with strings attached. And increasingly these strings are constricting around the necks of Americans' lives and liberties.

Fatigue is the best pillow.

Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.

Fear & complacency allow power to accumulate & liberty & privacy to suffer

Federalism isn’t about states’ rights. It’s about dividing power to better protect individual liberty.

Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

Fetters of gold are still fetters, and the softest lining can never make them so easy as liberty.

First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.

For far too long the American public and business sector have kept their silence as civil liberties have been whittled away by statutory and regulatory measures.

For liberty to expand, government must shrink. For the economy to grow, government must get out of the way.

For [Louis] Brandeis, it's not a technical question of channeling what would James Madison say. It's how do we take these inherent human natural rights of liberty and translate them into an age of new technolog

For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.

For more than two centuries, the defenders of liberty have put their lives on the line, because they have known that we cannot take our freedoms for granted.

For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, to consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors.

For the majority of people liberty means only the system and the administrators they are used to.

For us, democracy is a question of human dignity. This includes the political liberties, the right to freely express our views, the right to criticize and to influence opinion. It embraces the right to health and work, to education and social security.

For your own good is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction.

Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word.

Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken.

Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.

Freedom begins between the ears.

Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression... Our endeavors must be about the liberation of the woman, the emancipation of the man and the liberty of the child.

Freedom is such a precious commodity. Yet sometimes the freest of people devalue it the most.

Freedom is the supreme good; freedom from self imposed limitation.

Freedom and liberty always mean freedom from police interference.

Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant.

Freedom and the power to choose should not be the privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American.

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self sufficiency.

Freedom can be destroyed, not just by its retraction, but also by its abuse.

Freedom can't be kept for nothing. If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.

Freedom does not come without a price. We may sometimes take for granted the many liberties we enjoy in America, but they have all been earned through the ultimate sacrifice paid by so many of the members of our armed forces.

Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others.

Freedom is like birth. Till we are fully free, we are slaves.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.

Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.

For any man to match above his rank is but to sell his liberty.