Best 3053 quotes in «liberty quotes» category

[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.

If we can return to a government that the Founders, in their wisdom, envisioned for us, we can return to a government that will allow our economy to thrive again, and our people to live in liberty.

[I]f we assume a liberty interest but nevertheless say that, even assuming a liberty interest, a state can prohibit it entirely, that would be rather a conundrum.

...[I]f we care about our remaining liberties we must at some point draw a line in the sand and let politicians and bureaucrats know we will not tolerate further encroachment on our God-given rights to liberty.

If we have learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot Federalize Virtue.

If we hold true to our ideals and our commitment to freedom, this generation of servicemen and women will have extended liberty to the Iraqi people, just as previous generations of Americans have all across the globe.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

If we want to preserve our liberty, it is up to us to know what is going on, to know the Constitution, to know these limitation on the power of Congress and to insist that our leaders obey.

If you ask me to summarise our mission, I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

If you begin acting contrary to the public's interest, and there is no alternative governmental model, with which you're willing to engage, we, the people, will have to put forth our own extra governmental models and methods of trying to restore the balance of liberty to the liberal tradition of Western society.

If you care about your personal liberty, you'll be cautious when you feel comfortable, blame all the illegal immigrants for everything. What you need to do is attack their benefits: no free education, no free subsidies, no citizenship, no birth-right citizenship.

If you could have a famous writer, dead or alive, write an obituary for you and really puff you up to have been something you weren’t, perhaps, or otherwise take liberties with your memory, what writer would you choose?

If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated and must not be condemned by genetic speculation.

If you feel driven to feed the poor, get your checkbook out and keep your tyrannical mouth shut about it.

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves

If you look back on the history of the 20th century, the 19th century or even to the ancien régime of the 18th, you will see that first people rebelled against the order of the things because of lack of liberty, and demanded more freedom. And when they got more freedom, they got frightened, and they desired more security for a change. After a while, they started complaining, although more secure, they also become more dependent and rule-bound.

If you pinch the sea of its liberty, though it be walls of stone or brass, it will beat them down.

If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he... will be apt to interpret it the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasure he takes himself.

If you ruin your life, you will pay the price of rehabilitating yourself ... We are not punished for our sins, but by them. Liberty means responsibility.

If you sacrifice liberty for security, you will lose both.

If you think of 'Liberty Valance' or 'The Searchers,' there are moments in there that you'll never, ever forget... And it does not matter what century you are from.

If you want to remain at liberty, I suggest you not antagonize your defenders.

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.

If you want a Big Brother, you get all that comes with it.

If you want a candidate to defend life and marriage and religious liberty and the Second Amendment and to appoint strong constitutionalists to the court, I'm the only candidate with that record. That's why conservatives are uniting behind our campaign. And if they want to continue with the attacks, that's their prerogative.

I have my shortcomings. But the message, it has no shortcomings. The message of Liberty is what America is all about.

I grew up in New Jersey and never went up the Statue of Liberty.

I grew up in an era when strange adults would grab me on the street and say: 'Don't do that.' You never see that these days. 'Hi, we took the liberty of spanking your son.' Oh thanks, my hand was getting worn.

I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast . . . would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.

I had to learn that there is more to the human being than material comfort, more than success, more even than national spirit or patriotism. That in any being worthy of being human there is also a demand for justice, for liberty, and that justice needs the evidence of all our lives, liberty is one and indivisible and collective, and no one can talk of justice solely for expediency's sake, nor of liberty while human beings, anywhere else on earth, are still in bondage.

I have always in my own thought summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world, 'A free field and no favor.'

I have a wonderful make-up crew. They're the same people restoring the Statue of Liberty.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.

I have one abiding religion-human liberty.

I grew up like a neglected weed - ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it.

I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject.

I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.

I have never lied, “ Mr. Barris counters, standing as well. “I do not share what I am not at liberty to say. I gave my word and I intend to keep it but I have never lied to you. You never even asked me, you assumed I knew nothing.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.

I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state... But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.

I have spent almost my entire adult life fighting to defend the religious liberty of every American to follow his or her faith and live according to his conscience.

I have the impression that when we talk so confidently of liberty, we are unaware of the awful ... servitude of poverty when means are so small that there is literally no choice at all.

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

I have the right to life, liberty and chicken wings.

I have very real concerns about the civil liberties implications of ultimately requiring every resident to submit themselves for compulsory fingerprinting or some other biometric test.

I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason.