Quotes About Liberty

Wer seine eigene Freiheit sichern will, muss selbst seinen Feind vor Unterdrückung schützen.

The right of voting for persons charged with the execution of the laws that govern society is inherent in the word liberty, and constitutes the equality of personal rights. But even if that right (of voting) were inherent in property, which I deny, the right of suffrage would still belong to all equally, because, as I have said, all individuals have legitimate birthrights in a certain species of property. -Agrarian Justice

That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to support. And any burden which falls equally on all men, and from which every man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with the most perfect ideas of liberty.

Though age will naturally exempt a person from personal service, it cannot exempt him from his share of the charge, because the men are raised for the defence of property and liberty jointly.

if all with doubts about the factual basis of their religion will but commit to their resolution through direct and unfettered inquiry, our country - and with it the world - will see a rebirth of Liberty

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.

is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months.

Thomas Paine

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine. Paris, July, 1795.

I choose my life to this free. I choose my life to be this way

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth

Hij die zijn eigen vrijheid veilig wil stellen, moet zelfs zijn vijand tegen onderdrukking beschermen, want als hij die plicht schendt, schept hij een precedent dat op hemzelf terug zal slaan.

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

Put us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three: To which I answer, the

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.

Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.

Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation from others, and thus affords them the possibility of dignity. They loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, and thus confronts them with the possibility of insignificance.

Liberty without Love is Destruction, and Love without Liberty is Despair.

It is in this sense that responsibility is liberty; the more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose.

The central movement of the mind is the desire for unrestricted liberty and (...) this movement is invariably accompanied by its opposite, a dread of the consequences of liberty.

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.

When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it.

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.