Quotes About Liberty

I am an aristocrat. I love liberty I hate equality.

New Hampshire is one of the birthplaces of American freedom and independence - a place with a love and a passion for liberty.

Frankly, I love my independence too much to give it up.

If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, - Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.

The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power.

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. —Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 479 (1928)

A very different meaning of equality has emerged in the United States in recent decades—equality of outcome. Everyone should have the same level of living or of income, should finish the race at the same time. Equality of outcome is in clear conflict with liberty. The attempt to promote it has been a major source of bigger and bigger government, and of government-imposed restrictions on our liberty.

Freedom is a rare and delicate plant

Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. In addition, by dispersing power, the free market provides an offset to whatever concentration of political power may arise.

What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.

At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority.

A society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty.

Wherever you had Freedom, you had Capitalism.

Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. In addition, by dispersing power, the free market provides an offset to whatever concentration of political power may arise. The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

Am sentimentul vag ca libertatea individuala este o stare imperfecta de libertate, vorbi el in cele din urma, putin plictisit. Recunosc! un foarte vag si aproximativ sentiment. Cred, insa, ca o libertate colectiva, a speciei umane daca se poate, sau macar a unei anumite ramuri a acestei specii - este mult mai grandioasa, mult mai euforica...

But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken; and, notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims, we have it in our power, not only to free ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and, without violence, throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet;—

Moltes de nosaltres, va dir, ens eximim de la responsabilitat de canviar les coses aferrant-nos als sentiments del nostre passat. Llavors vivim amb llibertat, feliços, o si no som feliços del tot, almenys vivim sense una angoixa terrible.

La llibertat és bona, diu. És millor que l'esclavitud. I el perdó és bo, millor que la revenja. I l'esperança cap a allò que és desconegut és bona, millor que l'odi al que és conegut.

La Salome continua de seguida: El temps ens curarà l'aflicció del cor. L'objectiu final és la nostra llibertat i la seguretat, i els que impedeixen que l'aconseguim són els homes. Però no tots els homes, diu la Mejal. L'Ona puntualitza: Potser no els homes per se, sinó més aviat una ideologia perniciosa que han deixat que s'apoderés dels cors i dels caps dels homes.

You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea.

You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it.

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.