Best 3053 quotes in «liberty quotes» category

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort ... is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence.

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 sound like a sound of thunder rolled, And the heart of a nation stirred

As soon as we cease to pry about at random, we shall come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma; and as soon as we come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma, not only are the days of our liberty over, but we have lost the password that has hitherto opened to us the gates of success as well.

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

As soon as the economic freedom which the market economy grants to its members is removed, all political liberties and bills of rights become humbug.

As the growing emphasis on feelings crowds out reason, facts will play a smaller role in public discourse.

A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

As the liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty, and private property against violent attacks. Everything that goes beyond this is an evil. A government that, instead of fulfilling its task, sought to go so far as actually to infringe on personal security of life and health, freedom, and property would, of course, be altogether bad.

As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.

As the organized Left gained cultural power, it turned into a monster that found perpetual victimhood, combined with thought and speech control, the most efficient way to hold on to that power. Suddenly it was the Left, the protector of liberty, that was setting rules about what could and could not be said or even thought.

A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy.

A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious. . . . When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

At any rate, cost what it may, to separate ourselves from those who separate themselves from the truth of God is not alone our liberty, but our duty.

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.

At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further encroachments on individual liberty, those who cherish freedom are likely to expend their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same side as those who habitually resist change.

A [tax loophole is] something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.

A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.

A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government.

A Tory..., since the revolution, may be defined in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty; anda partizan of the family of Stuart. As a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty though without renouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line.

At times some people use force or fraud to take from others without willful, voluntary consent. Normally, the initiation of force to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, by the many acting against a few, or even by officials with fine hats and titles.

A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.

A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out.

A war, or any wild-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.

Awareness of death is the very bedrock of the entire path. Until you have developed this awareness, all other practices are obstructed.

A well-governed appetite is a great part of liberty

Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin... Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again... Take this great power away from them and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in... But, if you want to continue to be a slave of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit.

Because I was born a slave, I love liberty more than you.