As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!

Our land, the first garden of liberty’s tree – It has been, and shall be, the land of the free

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty

We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.

The security intended to the general liberty consists in the frequent election and in the rotation of the members of Congress.

It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much power or too little power and that the line which divides these extremes should be so inaccurately defined by experience.

Freedom arises from a multiplicity of sects, which pervades America, and is the best and only security for religious liberty in America.

Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.

[The proposed establishment] will have a . . . tendency to banish our Citizens. . . . To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

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

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.

Of all the enemies of public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.

In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides a question between power and liberty; in proportion to the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority, ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with which they are executed by every citizen in public trust.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.

The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire…

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

The advancement of science and the diffusion of information is the best aliment to true liberty.

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

Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.

The citizens of the United States have peculiar motives to support the energy of their constitutional charters.

The temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?ed

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example, and France has followed it, of charters of power granted by liberty.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.

Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment, without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourish faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The advancement of science and the diffusion of information [is] the best aliment to true liberty.

My mother saw me being attacked. She cried when I left engineering for this cause. She understood my fight, encouraged me. I remember all those who were with me in this struggle, including two colleagues who were killed. Whenever I free children from slavery and take them back to their mothers, the tears of happiness in their eyes are like blessings of God. When I see the faces of liberated children, I find their smile of freedom divine and it gives me divine strength. I never feel I’m liberating them, rather it feels like they’re giving me freedom.

I call for a march from exploitation to education, from poverty to shared prosperity, a march from slavery to liberty, and a march from violence to peace.

I believe in life. I believe in liberty. I believe in the pursuit of happiness.

“Give me liberty or give me death.” A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into.

In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing

From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee; Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree

The United States should be an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty

Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognized by all:-For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of law

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing

The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression

I fear not, I see not reason for fear. In the end we will be the victors. For though at times the flame of liberty may cease to shine, the ember will never expire

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon

My country is wherever liberty lives

All government, of course, is against liberty.

The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all.

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.

The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice, and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely.

Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

I want children, but at the moment the liberty I have now finally, has a far too high value.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the governmen

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.” She’s got a baseball bat and yelling “You want a piece of me?

Whither shall I flee? To no country on earth that I know of where there is as much liberty as yet remains to me even in Virginia.

A land without memories is a people without liberty.

I have had much experience with the unclean and uncivilized in the recent past. Shall I tell you what I discovered? I am not the state of my feet. I am not the dirt on my hands or the hygiene of my private parts. If I were these things, I would not have been at liberty to pray at any time since my arrest. But I did pray, because I am not these things. In the end, I am not even myself. I am a string of bones speaking the word God.

Education is the cornerstone of liberty.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

When governments claim to derive their authority from any source other than the governed, it always leads to the destruction of liberty.

The timid and fearful cannot defend liberty – or anything else.

I’m a member of no party, and have no ideology except a very old-fashioned one: liberty.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.

Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.

We are but a day in this world, and in that day the fashion is changed a thousand times: all seek liberty, yet all deprive themselves of it.

Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

He is a slave with a semblance of liberty which is worse than the most cruel slavery.

It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.

Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are fighting for the blessings of liberty.

Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

If we mean to support the liberty and independence which have cost us so much blood and treasure to establish, we must drive far away the demon of party spirit and local reproach.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true.

Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered… deeply, …finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.

With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

If many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world

There shall be no solution to this race problem until you, yourselves, strike the blow for liberty.

Our enemies have made the mistake that America’s enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now, they see defeat.

Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security.

God grants that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that anybody may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say, ‘This is my country!

The most secure place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty.

Security without liberty is called prison.

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

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin…. Today’s youth are moved by other slogans…Order, Hierarchy, Discipline.

We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.