quotations about liberty
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
SALLUST
Histories
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
JOHN RAWLS
A Theory of Justice
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
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
Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The whole notion, the whole concept of individual liberty is gone. The whole concept of limited government is gone. The whole concept of the Bill of Rights, the whole concept that the purpose of the Constitution is to limit the government, not limit the people. If you're on the verge of thinking we're losing that, then to me, that's it. That's ballgame. That's nutshell.
RUSH LIMBAUGH
The Rush Limbaugh Show, May 5, 2016
Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.
ISAIAH BERLIN
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas
Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.
JOSE MARTI
My Race
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. In this creed there will be but one word -- Liberty.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
You are welcome to your dainties; but for me, a dry crust with liberty against a king's luxury with a chain.
THOMAS JAMES
Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources
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
The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
Beauharnais v. Illinois
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
Every man derives his right to life and liberty from God.
H. BINGHAM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
A people contending for life and liberty are seldom disposed to look with a favorable eye upon either men or measures whose passions, interests or consequences will clash with those inestimable objects.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to General Thomas, Jul. 23, 1775
Half-liberty comes with wisdom, full liberty with death.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
KHALIL GIBRAN
The Vision
The most culpable of the excesses of Liberty is the harm she does herself.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
May the Lord level in the dust those who would deprive the people of their liberty.
JOHN HAMPDEN
attributed, Day's Collacon