Quotes About Liberty

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities, and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.

I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. . .To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society.

Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: "I'll do as I please at everybody else's expense." An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men (pg. 101).

I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom." "You call that freedom?" "To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

A right doesn't include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one's own effort.

It was a long story and the spirt which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. that is freedom. This and nothing else. ~Equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), pg 101

If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us? We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all the women of the earth.

When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights a government is men's deadliest enemy.

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned

To be free, a man must be free from his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

At the same time, was it not absurd to bleat about liberty when the province bought and sold Africans, "taken from all that is dear to them in their native soil"?

A corrupt people would not long remain free. "He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue," he concluded.

With each effort to suppress the spirit of liberty, Great Britain managed only to promote it.

I will stand alone. I will oppose tyranny at the threshold, though the fabric of liberty fall and I perish in its ruins.

I don't think you can appreciate the simplicity of freedom until you've suffered. She

A citizen of the Roman Empire, for example, would have placed less value on individual liberty in the modern Western sense than on collective responsibility.

Isabella eventually won her case and went on to live a glamorous life in Paris, where she married a duke and became Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty.

I figured that I should just do what I wanted to do. Not think about it. Not say it out loud.

Blood is the fertilizer of freedom. Maybe yours and mine.

America is the first democratic nation-state, now more than two and a quarter centuries old. Our greatest triumphs are the 18th century creation of our democratic republic, the 19th century abolishment of slavery and the holding together of our Union, and our 20th century crushing of totalitarianism.