quotations about liberty
Our individual liberty is the very essence of America. It is what makes America unique. If you aren't free to protect yourself--when government puts its thumb on that freedom--then you aren't free at all.
WAYNE LAPIERRE
speech, March 15, 2013
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Starship Troopers
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
address on West India Emancipation, Aug. 4, 1857
Then liberty, like day,
Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.
JOHN MILTON
The History of Britain
If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor.
G. S. HILLARD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
speech at Aberystwyth, Aug. 3, 1928
It seemed to me much more than the mere question whether the negro should remain in slavery; that it really involved the question whether liberty should be strangled on the continent dedicated to liberty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles
It is true that liberty is precious -- so precious that it must be rationed.
VLADIMIR LENIN
attributed, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization
Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew.
KENNETH W. ROYCE
Boston's Gun Bible
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.
LEARNED HAND
speech in Central Park, New York, "The Spirit of Liberty", May 21, 1944
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
SALLUST
Histories
We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.
TONY BLAIR
final speech to the Labour Party Annual Conference as leader, 26 September 2006
Individual liberty is the building block of a free society.
WHITNEY NEAL
"Igniting a passion for liberty through classroom engagement", Washington Times, September 8, 2015
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
KHALIL GIBRAN
The Vision
Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening.
WALTER LIPPMANN
Drift and Mastery
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
JOHN RAWLS
A Theory of Justice