Top 81 Civil Freedom Quotes
#1. Political freedom is, or ought to be, the best guaranty for the safety and continuance of spiritual, mental, and civil freedom. It is the combination of numbers to secure the liberty to each one.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#2. In all those cases, in accordance with the theme of this book, increases in economic freedom have gone hand in hand with increases in political and civil freedom and have led to increased prosperity; competitive capitalism and freedom have been inseparable.
Milton Friedman
#3. In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#4. The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. That's a personal evaluation, of course.
Robert A. Heinlein
#5. I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
George McGovern
#6. The [Apache] tribe was under siege by government agents, who had jailed some of the medicine men for practicing their rituals. Freedom of religion was cherished as a sacrosanct American right -- everywhere, that is, but on the archipelago of Indian life.
Timothy Egan
#7. We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.
Thomas Jefferson
#8. Throughout world history, all freedom has been no more than repetitious abolishment of what has already been abolished. There is no end to the killing of weeds.
Warren Eyster
#9. Tell me, in a world where wealth is power, and power is the only freedom, what would desperate men not do to be heard?" "Civil
Claire North
#10. Be wary of those propagating too much about liberty, ideology, and civility; they just might be oppressors in the making.
Aniruddha Sastikar
#11. A freedom given up is not so easily regained.
Rivera Sun
#12. The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
Ida B. Wells
#13. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard
#16. Governor Ford is sworn to support the Constitution of the United States and also of this State Illinois, and these constitutions guarantee religious as well as civil liberty to all religious societies whatever.
Joseph Smith Jr.
#18. After the Civil War, when blacks fought along whites to secure freedom for all, southern states enacted Black Codes, laws that restricted the civil rights and liberties of blacks. Central to the enforcement of these laws were the stiff penalties for blacks possessing firearms.
Niger Innis
#19. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
Adam Smith
#20. Simply put: because nonviolence worked so well as a tactic for effecting change and was demonstrably improving their lives, some black people chose to use weapons to defend the nonviolent Freedom Movement.
Charles E. Cobb
#22. A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.
Pope Benedict XVI
#23. We wouldn't have to take your rights away if you'd just stop exercising them.
Carl-John X. Veraja
#24. If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it?
Michel Templet
#25. My heart beats red, white, and blue.
And with patriotism it aches
Generally, I believe in democracy, freedom and civil rights
But in particular, cupcakes
John Walter Bratton
#26. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
#27. Freedom of religion means the right of the individual to choose and to adhere to whichever religious beliefs he may prefer, to join with others in religious associations to express these beliefs, and to incur no civil disabilities because of his choice ...
Joseph Leon Blau
#28. What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#29. Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta.
Billy Graham
#30. When we stand up for what we believe in - for what's right - there is always a chance that we risk the very things we fight for: our safety, our lives, our freedom. But if we stand down, the risk is definite.
Kelseyleigh Reber
#31. I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.
George Soros
#32. Hollywood, Woodstock, nor the hippie culture was the source of power of the 1960's freedom movement. God was.
Glenn Beck
#33. The suppression of civil liberties is too many less a matter for horror than the curtailment of the freedom to profit.
Marya Mannes
#34. The universal dress of philosophy and philanthropy can conceal repression, violations of the true personal, human,
local, civil, and national freedom
Johann Gottfried Herder
#35. I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances.
Lee Kuan Yew
#36. There are turning points in everyone's life when we have to fight, even if we have to do it by ourselves and in public.
Junius Williams
#37. For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.
Jennifer Chiaverini
#38. Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.
Karl Marx
#39. For as Jews, the problem happens to be more urgent and vital than for others; because the destruction of religion on America will involve the destruction also of the religious training of freedom; and with that our civil liberties.
Louis Finkelstein
#40. If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American
our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.
Jon Stewart
#41. Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.
John Quincy Adams
#42. As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.
Albert Einstein
#43. Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice.
Clarence Thomas
#44. In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining ... . We demand this fraud be stopped.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#45. You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.
Ron Paul
#46. Dr. King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech was delivered at 'The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,' a call to justice beyond the traditional civil rights movement's focus.
Charles B. Rangel
#47. An act of a dictatorship is an act of a civil war - Freedom to the people.
Jim
#48. [T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government ... and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.
Noah Webster
#49. The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.
Julian Bond
#50. Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.
Ella Baker
#51. Liberals say they are for civil liberties and personal freedom, but they continue to advocate government regulation of business, redistribution of wealth, and various forms of social engineering to manipulate human relationships and attitudes.
Richard Ebeling
#52. The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.
James McGreevey
#53. How can you be conservative and justify wiretapping people without a warrant? We're supposed to be the party of personal freedom and civil liberties.
Roger Stone
#54. Knocking on doors wasn't working. We had to try something else. Remember the kids whose natural curiosity brought them into our little office on the corner? We set up a Freedom School that was fashioned after the SNCC Freedom Schools in Mississippi and other places.
Junius Williams
#55. It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving.
Edgar Friedenberg
#56. God desires to free our country from darkness through our active civil position.
Sunday Adelaja
#57. These men were religious when the spirit of religion was buried in forms and ceremonies, and when the priesthood had armed itself with the civil powers to put down all opposition, and suppress all freedom, intellectual, civil, and religious.
Ethan A. Hitchcock
#58. What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later.
Jonathan Sacks
#59. The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right - subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.
L. Neil Smith
#60. Capitalism is not a form of government. Capitalism is a symptom of freedom. It is the result of individual rights, which include property rights.
A.E. Samaan
#61. Because freedom, it turned out, wasn't like a new shoe: you didn't need to break it in. It felt comfortable the first time you tried it on. It wasn't the present that pinched, it was the past.
Dale Peck
#62. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#63. I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that we have an obligation to condemn speech that is racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, or hateful.
John Lewis
#64. The good society is marked by a high degree of order, justice, and freedom. Among these, order has primacy: for justice cannot be enforced until a tolerable civil social order is attained, nor can freedom be anything better than violence until order gives us laws.
Russell Kirk
#65. Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.
Aberjhani
#67. Everything African-Americans - every freedom they have obtained - came from Republicans, not Democrats. All the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the Civil Rights movement. Civil Rights legislation was passed by a Republican Congress.
Rafael Cruz
#68. And when the time is right, I hope that African Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty, and individual freedom.
Rand Paul
#69. The Point, not unlike the Communist Chinese, the ACLU abhors individual religious freedom, and it supports only those civil liberties that fit its narrow political agenda.
Mark Hyman, M.D.
#70. This is how it works. Everything is connected. Every choice matters. Every person is vital, and valuable, and worthy of respect.
Deborah Wiles
#71. Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.
Dick Gregory
#72. The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear
Aung San Suu Kyi
#73. We may continue to expect the enjoyment of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, guaranteed by the Constitution. The citizens of Illinois have done themselves honor, in throwing the mantle of the Constitution over a persecuted and afflicted people.
Joseph Smith Jr.
#74. Religious institutions should have religious freedom on this issue. No church or minister should ever have to conduct a marriage that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs. But I think as a civil institution, this issue's time has come and we need to move forward.
Kay Hagan
#75. Resistance to change in the mental health system comes disguised as protection of civil liberties and freedom of speech. As a result, many parents, families, and caregivers are at a loss and feel defeated by the majority of Americans who strive to maintain the current rules of society.
Tamara Hill
#76. The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty.
John Milton
#77. In every country where there is a vicious oppression, a peaceful and a continuous civil disobedience is the magical door opening to the freedom!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#78. In the US, what passes for Christianity - and it is, to say the least, a highly perverse, possessive individualist and capitalist version of what I would see as Christ's messianic ethical communism, to say the least - is a new civil religion, a civil religion of freedom.
Simon Critchley
#79. I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.
Henry David Thoreau
#80. The enemy was not the Klan but the inside-outside lock that racism and classism had on the minds of the people: It operated from the inside through self-hate and self-doubt, and from the outside through the police, carnivorous landlords, and the welfare system.
Junius Williams
#81. The civil rights movement is understanding your freedom under the Constitution of these United States and if anyone tries to take those freedoms from you, you better rise up and fight and that's what we're doing together.
Ken Hutcherson
