Quotes About Liberty

Let us be clear at the outset that the liberty of individuals to carry on their business should not be abrogated unless the larger interests of the many are concerned. It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved. These are the principals which must be remembered in any consideration of this question. This, I take it, is sound government-not politics.

No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion, or even good business. Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.... Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

slavery is opposed to work...work presupposes liberty, responsibility, and consciousness...the more intelligence you bring to your work, the more pleasure you will have in it.

Desperto um belo dia no mundo e me atribuo um único direito: exigir do outro um comportamento humano. Um único dever: o de nunca, através de minhas opções, renegar minha liberdade.

Las cadenas de la esclavitud sólo atan las manos: es la mente la que hace al hombre libre o esclavo

I am free and that is why I am lost.

In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?

Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?

And what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, or labor, or trade?

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.

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, a new form of servitude.

Apparve come una scellerata con la presunzione di contrapporsi ad un potere che tutto stritola, sì, ma perdona anche ogni peccato e solleva da ogni responsabilità, e compresi che questa era la vera ragione con cui la folla era stata indotta a rinunciare alla libertà e ad arrendersi al male, perché colpa ed espiazione esistono soltanto nella libertà

The freedom of each individual can only be the freedom of all.

Nur im Irrenhaus sind wir noch frei. Nur im Irrenhaus durfen wir noch denken. In der Freiheit sind unsere Gedanken Sprengstoff.

Freedom can occur only through education.