Best 3053 quotes in «liberty quotes» category

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

He who let's the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

History has been stolen from us and replaced with guilt inducing lies.

History could not be any clearer: Rights given by fad and fashion are just as easily taken away. The Constitution matters.

History is the same story with different costumes.

Honoring the value of competence and steadfastness requires a generosity of spirit and a curbing of the passion for envy, traits that few people value and fewer still cultivate and acquire. Not until there is more of Smith and less of Hobbes in the human heart, will the majority of people prefer peaceful and boring market relations to the violent and exciting relations between coercer and coerced, predator and victim

How will the remaining portion of the community like to have the amusements that shall be permitted to them regulated by the religious and moral sentiments of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would they not, with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively pious members of society to mind their own business? This is precisely what should be said to every government and every public, who have the pretension that no person shall enjoy any pleasure which they think wrong.

Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable.

Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.

Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude.

I am a hero! Are you?" - Chris

I am an aristocrat: I love liberty, I hate equality.

I am an aristocrat," Virginian John Randolph would explain decades after the American Revolution. "I love liberty; I hate equality.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

I am for the largest liberty for the poor man -- for the oppressed.

I am in a cage. I desire to be set free.

I am happy that I can aid those admirable men, both living and dead, who by their pens or their tongues have aided the great cause of human liberty and universal happiness.

I am not interested in having freedom from burdens. I don't need any authority to free me from responsibility. I am not interested in having freedoms within an authoritarian's parameters. I am only interested in self-determination. I have only respect for liberty as I am a libertarian.

I am in misery, I am in pain, but I am not in conflict.

I am not one of those who underrate the value of civil and political liberty; but I am well assured that it is only the principles of Christianity which can impart true security, prosperity, and happiness either to individuals or to nations.

I am the interpretation of the prophet I am the artist in the coffin I am the brave flag stained with blood I am the wounds overcome I am the dream refusing to sleep I am the bare-breasted voice of liberty I am the comic the insult and the laugh I am the right the middle and the left I am the poached eggs in the sky I am the Parisian streets at night I am the dance that swings till dawn I am the grass on the greener lawn I am the respectful neighbour and the graceful man I am the encouraging smile and the helping hand I am the straight back and the lifted chin I am the tender heart and the will to win I am the rainbow in rain I am the human who won’t die in vain I am Athena of Greek mythology I am the religion that praises equality I am the woman of stealth and affection I am the man of value and compassion I am the wild horse ploughing through I am the shoulder to lean onto I am the Muslim the Jew and the Christian I am the Dane the French and the Palestinian I am the straight the square and the round I am the white the black and the brown I am the free speech and the free press I am the freedom to express I will die for my right to be all the above here mentioned And should threat encounter I’ll pull my pencil

I am sorry for those who have never had the experience of seeing the victory of a national liberation movement, and I feel cold contempt for those who jeer at it.

Ideas are very important for the shaping of society. In fact, they are far more powerful than bombs or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes much more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we ca make real change that lasts.

I became a Libertarian as a result of researching WWII and the Holocaust. Individual liberty is sacred.

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion... for liberalism is not so much a party creed as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

Ideals of liberty , freedom and righteousness do not prosper in the 20th century excepts they coincide with oil, rubber, gold, diamond, coal, iron, sugar, coffee, and such other minerals and products desired by the privileged, capitalists and leaders who control the system of government.

I did it the hard way ( a poem) _________________________ Many of the big dreams I dreamt, I dreamt, when I met a failed attempt. Life taught me to believe that Great ideas can start from a wretched hut. Many of the strongest steps I took, I took, when I was given the fiercest look. My passion pokes me to understand That people’s mockeries, I can withstand. Many of the fastest speeds I gained, I gained when I was bitterly stained. I first thought the only way was to quit As I tried again, I no longer have guilt. Many of the bravest decisions I made, I made, when my life was about to fade. I was frustrated and ripe to sink. But then I strive to release the ink. Many of the longest journeys I started, I started, having no resource; money parted I relied on God my creator all dawn long And at dusk He gave me a new song. Many of the hardest questions I tackled, I tackled, when I was heckled. They were very troublesome to settle But I make it happen little by little Yet, it was not I, but the Lord Jesus The saviour who gives me success. In Him, through Him and by Him I have the liberty to do everything with vim. I don’t want to enjoy this liberty alone. You too must step out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy, but you can do it anyway. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way. ___________________________ Israelmore Ayivor

I did it the hard way (a poem) ___________________ Many of the big dreams I dreamt, I dreamt, when I met a failed attempt. Life taught me to believe that Great ideas can start from a wretched hut. Many of the strongest steps I took, I took, when I was given the fiercest look. My passion pokes me to understand That people’s mockeries, I can withstand. Many of the fastest speeds I gained, I gained when I was bitterly stained. I first thought the only way was to quit As I tried again, I no longer have guilt. Many of the bravest decisions I made, I made, when my life was about to fade. I was frustrated and ripe to sink. But then I strive to release the ink. Many of the longest journeys I started, I started, having no resource; money parted I relied on God my creator all dawn long And at dusk He gave me a new song. Many of the hardest questions I tackled, I tackled, when I was heckled. They were very troublesome to settle But I make it happen little by little Yet, it was not I, but the Lord Jesus The saviour who gives me success. In Him, through Him and by Him I have the liberty to do everything with vim. I don’t want to enjoy this liberty alone. You too must step out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy, but you can do it anyway. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way.

I'd left them because I'd loved them. Beth and my parents and my friends and my life-my free, American life. I loved them, and if I had a chance to protect them from the people who wanted to destroy them then I had to take that chance even if it meant I would never see them again.

I do not believe in equality of results. I believe in "equal opportunity" and "equality before the law".

I don't have much patience for people who enjoy limitless liberty while decrying those who get their hands dirty to make sure it exists for them.

I don’t care what your excuse is, I don’t care what you think God told you to do, if you are in the business of closing children’s minds and obliterating their capacity to imagine, and depriving them of a capacity to laugh, then you are a criminal. Maybe not under the law, but under any decent system of morality. Shame on anyone who brainwashes a child and attacks their individual liberty and deprives them of the freedom that is the very definition of a human being. Shame.

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]

If any of the socialist chiefs had tried to earn his living by selling hot dogs, he would have learned something about the sovereignty of the consumers.

If chance assign’d Were to my mind By very kind Of destiny, Yet would I crave Nought else to have But life and liberty. Then were I sure I might endure The displeasure Of cruelty: Where now I plain, Alas, in vain, Lacking my life for liberty. For without the one The other is gone, Ad there can none It remedy: If the one be past The other doth waste, And all for lack of liberty. And so I drive, As yet alive, Although I strive With misery: Drawing my breath, Looking for death And loss of life for liberty. But thou that still Mayst at thy will Turn all this ill Adversity: For the repair Of my welfare Grant me but life and liberty. And if not so, Then let all go To wretched woe, And let me die: For the one or the other, There is none other: My death, or life with liberty. - Poem XLI from "Songs and Lyrics

If collectivizing highly personal medical decisions is evil, then so follows that collectivized medicine is evil.

If government half a century ago had provided us with all our dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators today to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves.

If government played by the same rules as the rest of us, it would cease to be government.

If I am asked, What do you propose to substitute for universal suffrage? Practically, What have you to recommend? I answer at once, Nothing. The whole current of thought and feeling, the whole stream of human affairs, is setting with irresistible force in that direction. The old ways of living, many of which were just as bad in their time as any of our devices can be in ours, are breaking down all over Europe, and are floating this way and that like haycocks in a flood. Nor do I see why any wise man should expend much thought or trouble on trying to save their wrecks. The waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god.

If freedom rings, then bondage bombs.

If I were a bird,I could wish a flight unrestrained, and without bothering my sadness.

If liberty is abused, get ready for an awkward result

If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas – and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do – it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas.

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential order of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls.

If then, merely out of regard to population, it were right that paederasts should be burnt alive, monks ought to be roasted alive over a slow fire. (Offences Against One's Self,

If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will not leave it, why keep the door so carefully shut? Why not open it, only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against the bars, but would fly if the doors were open?