Quotes About Freedom

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

This is the Fourth?

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should to rest on inference.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.

By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.

Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

He [King George III] has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. That government is best which governs least.

No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers wthout government, I should not hesita

The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.