LIBERTY QUOTES III

quotations about liberty

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.

EDMUND BURKE

Reflections on the Revolution in France


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.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

general orders, Jul. 2, 1776


The idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureaucracy.

GEORGE ORWELL

"Notes on Nationalism"

Tags: George Orwell


Liberty is equally desirable to the good and to the bad, to the brave and to the dastardly.

JOHN MAIR

An Introduction to Latin Syntax


It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Le Deuxieme Sexe


I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

RONALD REAGAN

Farewell Address, Jan. 11, 1989

Tags: Ronald Reagan


Liberty is an old fact; it has had its heroes and its martyrs in almost every age. As I look back through the vista of centuries, I can see no end of the ranks of those who have toiled and suffered in its cause, and who wear upon their breasts its stars of the legion of honor.

EDWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN

Living Words

Tags: E. H. Chapin


Through too much liberty all things run to ruin and confusion. Liberty in the mind is a sign of goodness; in the tongue, of foolishness; in the hand, of theft; in our life, of want of grace.

M. PARKER

attributed, Day's Collacon


It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regards as the public good.

FRIEDRICH HAYEK

The Constitution of Liberty

Tags: Friedrich Hayek


Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.

EDMUND BURKE

letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, Apr. 3, 1777


I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J. J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each -- an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being -- they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

"La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'etat"

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body; without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

LORD BOLINGBROKE

The Works of the Late Right Honorable Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke


The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.

JIMMY CARTER

Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981

Tags: Jimmy Carter


True liberty consists exactly in self-determination in the direction of holiness. Man is never more free than when he moves consciously in the direction of God.

LOUIS BERKHOF

Systematic Theology

Tags: Louis Berkhof


It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.

EARL WARREN

United States v. Robel


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.

JAMES MADISON

letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798


He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Tags: John Locke


If liberty were to go on a pilgrimage all over the earth, she would find a home in every house, and a welcome in every heart.

WILLIAM ELDER

attributed, Day's Collacon


What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be preferred to all things.

CICERO

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Cicero


What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Democracy in America