Quotes About Independence

O puÈ™c? fusese mult? vreme visul tân?rului. În toate ??rile unde independenÈ›a ia locul libert??ii, prima nevoie pe care orice inim? tare, orice caracter puternic o încearc? e aceea a unei arme care asigur? totdeauna atacul È™i ap?rarea È™i care, f?cându-l pe acela ce o poart? cumplit, îl face, deseori, È™i temut.

Athos, secondo il solito, né lo dissuadeva, né lo incoraggiava. Athos era del parere che bisognava lasciare ad ognuno la sua libera scelta. Non dava mai consigli senza esserne richiesto e bisognava anche chiederglieli due volte. - In generale, - egli diceva, - i consigli si chiedono soltanto per non seguirli, o, se si sono seguiti, per aver qualcuno a cui poter rimproverare d'averli dati.

Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life--for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes--I throw all my useless baggage in the sea, that's all, and remain with my will, prepared to live entirely alone and consequently entirely free.

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.

The more alike men are, the weaker each feels in the face of all.

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science;

I am unacquainted with a more deplorable spectacle than that of a people unable either to defend or to maintain its independence.

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

The Revolution in the United States was produced by a mature and thoughtful taste for liberty, and not by a vague and undefined instinct for independence.

In the United States, the majority takes upon itself the task of supplying to the individual a mass of ready-made opinions, thus relieving him of the necessity to take the proper responsibility of arriving at his own.

Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common—equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude.

I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will be the natural form of government.

Nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea of subjection to forms.

The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.

Americans owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus democracy throws [a man] back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New England, we find the germ and gradual development of that township independence which is the life and mainspring of American liberty at the present day.

What good is it to me to have an authority always ready to see to the tranquil enjoyment of my pleasures, to brush away all dangers from my path without my having to think about them, if such an authority, as well as removing thorns from under my feet, is also the absolute master of my freedom or if it so takes over all activity and life that around it all must languish when it languishes, sleep when it sleeps and perish when it perishes.

Whoever seeks anything from freedom but freedom itself is doomed to slavery.

An individual so different from all the others, so independent, so favored, destroys or weakens the rule of law.

The man who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his activity and even his opinions to their control, can have no claim to rank as a free citizen.

At each instant citizens fall under the control of the public administration; they are brought insensibly and almost without their knowing it to sacrifice new parts of their individual independence to it every day, and the same men who from time to time overturn a throne and ride roughshod over kings bend more and more without resistance to the slightest will of a clerk.