Quotes About Liberty

If he had wanted to impose a monarchy upon America, Hamilton said, he would follow the classic path of a populist demagogue: "I would mount the hobbyhorse of popularity, I would cry out usurpation, danger to liberty etc. etc. I would endeavour to prostrate the national government, raise a ferment, and then ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm.

I think that we Americans, at least in the Southern col[onie]s, cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we shall have enfranchised our slaves," Laurens told a friend right before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Hamilton lacked the temperament of a true-blue revolutionary. He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton's lifelong task was to try to straddle and resolve this contradiction and to balance liberty and order.

He railed against the baleful precedent that would be set if the legislature exiled an entire category of people without hearings or trials. If that happened, "no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common sense.

He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton's lifelong task was to try to straddle and resolve this contradiction and to balance liberty and order. The

May we not justly say . . . that the liberty which Mr. Lincoln declared with his pen General Grant made effectual with his sword—by his skill in leading the Union armies to final victory?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"49

My brave fellows," he said, "you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected. But your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear . . . If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.

Frederick Douglass paired Grant with Lincoln as the two people who had done most to secure African American advances: "May we not justly say . . . that the liberty which Mr. Lincoln declared with his pen General Grant made effectual with his sword—by his skill in leading the Union armies to final victory?"21 For the admiring Douglass, Grant was "the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.

As to the love of liberty and country, you have given no stronger proofs of being actuated by it than I have done. Cease then to arrogate to yourself and to your party all the patriotism and virtue of the country."70

Jefferson inwardly reviled Hamilton as a traitor to republican government. "What a fatal stroke at the cause of liberty; et tu Brute," he wrote in his diary.

liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power. . . . [T]he former rather than the latter is apparently most to be apprehended by the United States.

Via com bastante clareza que mais liberdade podia conduzir a uma maior desordem e, por uma dialética perigosa, de volta à perda da liberdade.

Qutb hävdar att liv utan islam är slaveri; därför kan verklig frihet inte uppnås förrän jahiliyya har utplånats. Det är endast när människans styre har utrotats och sharia har införts som det inte kommer att finnas något tvång i religionen, för det finns bara ett val: islam.

Any day could be the last of life or liberty, so small pleasures were always worth pursuing.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I must settle for freedom in this modern time

Desde el momento en que pisaban el suelo de Israel, aquellos que habían vivido despreciados, pisoteados, disfrutaban de una libertad y una consideración humana que la mayoría jamás habían conocido, y verse iguales a sus semejantes les infundía un valor y una decisión que no tenían equivalente en toda la historia de la humanidad.

Our land has grown a magnificent liberty tree and its fruit is the richest ideal of the human soul. But, we cannot go on forever merely eating the fruit of the liberty tree or it will die. We must begin to plant some seeds.

If you remember nothing else, remember this. No crime a man commits in behalf of his freedom can be as great as the crimes committed by those who deny his freedom.

The worker," said August Bebel (a revered prewar party leader), "has little interest in a state in which political liberty is merely the goal. . . . What good is mere political liberty to him if he is hungry?

There in the city's steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way- a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we've the courage to begin.

Nearby, Lady Liberty hoists her torch in the harbor, a beacon to all who come to these shores to escape persecution or famine or hopelessness. For this is the land of dreams. The

Liberty begins with a heart reconciled to God.