Best 3053 quotes in «liberty quotes» category

And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse - the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist.

And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.

And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject.

And when the time is right, I hope that African Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty, and individual freedom.

And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

An enactment for the favour and liberty of the subject ought to have a liberal construction.

An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.

An individual is an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer.

An intolerant sect has no right to complain when it is denied an equal liberty... A person's right to complain is limited to principles he acknowledges himself.

[A new all-encompassing national identification system] contradicts some of our most sacrosanct American principles of personal liberty and expectations of privacy and is far in excess of what is needed to provide us with the security and protections we all want.

An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.

Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases.

Any nation which for an extended period puts pleasure before liberty is likely to lose the liberty it misused.

Anything the government gives you is just another link in the chains that destroy your liberty.

An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.

Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?

Anyone willing to give up liberty in exchange for security deserves neither.

A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.

A people are free in proportion as they form their own opinions.

A people who chose security over liberty will receive neither nor deserve either.

A piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings...unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible--we have it all, or we are not free.

Arbitrariness and true liberty are as distinct from each other that the empirical nature is distinct from the higher nature of man.

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

A right is worth fighting for only when it can be put into operation.

Art is never decoration, embellishment; instead, it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty.

Anytime anyone is enslaved or in any way deprived of his liberty, that person, as a human being, as far as I'm concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again.

A right without an attendant responsibility is as unreal as a sheet of paper which has only one side.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

A self-conscious society will therefore endeavor to limit sect forming by providing for the widest possible diffusion of secular knowledge.

As a reformer the liberal is dissatisfied with things as they are because they violate his exceptionally tender conscience.... Liberalism does not advocate change for its own sake, but for the sake of something better in the direction of what he regards as good, namely, the maximum of liberty consistent with a regard for all men and all interests -- the general happiness based on peace and justice.

As a writer, I always tend to take the liberty and the great artistic luxury of a composite form of writing.

A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.

As is always the case when peace takes precedence over liberty, neither is achieved.

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago.

Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from.

A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts.

As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.

As long as men die, liberty will never parish.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.

A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion.

A society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. And a society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.