Top 100 Quotes About Liberty
#1. Liberty - eternal spirit of the chainless mind
Lord Byron
#2. My sole ambition is to rid Mexico of the class that has oppressed her and given the people a chance to know what real liberty means. And if I could bring that about today by giving up my life, I would do it gladly.
Pancho Villa
#3. The engine of liberty must be greased with the blood of both the oppressors and the oppressed. There is no better lubrication for something so prone to rust and seizure." Sirius Vant, in a speech to the Sun Dogs, Unknown Planet, Aashaanti Corridor, final stages of the Triton Wars
Sara King
#4. In understandably wishing to increase freedom and liberty, it paradoxically left massive road kill everywhere on the highway to rational heaven.
Ken Wilber
#5. The election of a man committed to the cause of freedom and the renewal of America's strength has given encouragement to all those who love liberty.
Margaret Thatcher
#6. The love of liberty and the sense of human dignity are the basic elements of the Anarchist creed.
Federica Montseny
#7. If liberty sang a song, little,
as the larynx of a bird,
nowhere would there remain a tumbling wall.
Ahmad Shamlou
#8. A limited state with free economic systems is the soil where the liberty tree blossoms.
Orrin Woodward
#10. There is no such thing as equality for some. Equality must be for all. That is what freedom is. That is what liberty is. No human being is born more or less important than any other. How can we allow ourselves to forget that? What simpler truth is there?
David Levithan
#11. Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.
Friedrich August Von Hayek
#12. Ted Kennedy's inspiration will loom large over our politics for years to come, uplift us in the healthcare fight, and help to achieve his dream of liberty and justice for all.
Christine Pelosi
#13. You never want to give up your liberty, even if you are told it is for security. The Patriot Act is a perfect example of giving up liberty for security. It says let us tap your phones so we can keep safe.
Benjamin Franklin
#14. America will never run ... And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders.
George W. Bush
#16. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.
Thomas Jefferson
#17. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses.
Charles Evans Hughes
#18. In Texas, we hold very dear to intrusions against our personal liberty. We fight very hard against that.
Barack Obama
#19. Wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people
Friedrich August Von Hayek
#20. Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.
Clive Bell
#21. It is necessary to stay on the march, to be on the journey, to work for peace wherever we are at all times, because the liberty we cherish, which we would share with the world, demands eternal vigilance.
Ossie Davis
#22. Let's never forget what made us great as a nation. It's not diversity, it's liberty.
Joseph Farah
#23. It should be remarked that, as the principle of liberty is better understood, and more nobly interpreted, a broader protest is made in behalf of women. As men become aware that few have had a fair chance, they are inclined to say that no women have had a fair chance.
Margaret Fuller
#24. The crime problem in New York is getting really serious. The other day the Statue of Liberty had both hands up.
Jay Leno
#25. Pope John XXIII's motto might be heard here: "In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things, charity." That is second-half-of-life, hardwon wisdom.
Richard Rohr
#26. That liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise judge so from the conduct of the white-people, in the late war.
Jupiter Hammon
#27. Liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. You do not do that. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them.
H.W. Brands
#28. Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.
Giacomo Casanova
#29. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
John Milton
#30. The purpose of the socialists is to suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people to associate together in true liberty.)
Frederic Bastiat
#31. Why must we cling to those who walk away instead of granting freedom? We must give the same liberty God gives to prodigals-an ability to let them go-or we'll be perennially bound to others for our happiness and effective service.
Mary E. DeMuth
#32. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
#33. To invent something you have to be removed from the world. In order to have liberty to imagine something better, you need to step outside for a while.
Bruce Mau
#34. The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#35. Do not love your country. Love your God-given freedoms. Don't fight for a government, but rather fight against anyone who would threaten your liberty, and your right to be alive.
D.J. Molles
#36. Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press.
Dennis Prager
#37. Sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness.
William Henry Harrison
#38. It is the privilege and duty of the present generation to pass on to its successors, unimpaired, the heritage of liberty bequeathed to it by the founders of the Republic.
George B. Cortelyou
#39. I do what i do for love. Anything else is a form of slavery. A reduction of my humanity. Which is why i feel the moral liberty to search through minds.
Islam Atef Aly
#40. That is true liberty, which bears a pure and firm breast.
Quintus Ennius
#41. If you pinch the sea of its liberty, though it be walls of stone or brass, it will beat them down.
John Cotton
#42. Mankind may amuse themselves with theoretic systems of liberty ... but we can only discern its true value by the practical and wretched effects of slavery.
Mercy Otis Warren
#43. Asking an eight-year-old girl if something is a little over-the-top is like asking a Texan if there are too many jalapenos in the salsa. The answer is always no. -Liberty Jones
Lisa Kleypas
#45. The defence of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.
John C. Calhoun
#46. By Oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do or die!
Robert Burns
#47. History has taught us over and over again that freedom is not free. When push comes to shove, the ultimate protectors of freedom and liberty are the brave men and women in our armed forces. Throughout our history, they've answered the call in bravery and sacrifice.
Tim Pawlenty
#48. If there were just one gift you could choose, but nothing barred, what would it be? We wish you then your own wish; you name it. Ours is liberty, now and forever.
Isabel Paterson
#49. Most people today don't feel that Barack Obama is on our side. We sense he's incapable of doing what Roosevelt did, of loving his country so much that he was willing to run great risks in order to advance its cause, to free others from a new Dark Age - and protect our own liberty in the process.
Arthur L. Herman
#50. The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor.
Gustave De Molinari
#51. Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.
Al Jarreau
#52. There are still civil rights issues. There are still people who can't be visited by their spouse in the hospital because they're gay. These are humanitarian issues. At the end of the day, all you want is for people to be happy in the pursuit of life, love and liberty.
Brandi Carlile
#53. A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident risks an even larger loss of life and liberty.
William A. Niskanen
#54. Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.
Thomas Jefferson
#55. Travel the world, learn other languages, demand liberty, despise violence, read books, and keep a dictionary nearby.
Jeff B. Davis
#56. Men of New England, I hold you to the doctrines of liberty which ye inherit from your Puritan forefathers.
Caleb Cushing
#58. I realize that lust stands high in the list of deadly sins. And yet lust - the tightening of the throat, the flushed cheeks, the raging appetite - is the only word accurate to describe the sensation I felt that morning, as the painted door closed and I was left with the liberty of all those books.
Geraldine Brooks
#60. May the Lord level in the dust those who would deprive the people of their liberty.
John Hampden
#61. It is not a liberty of circumstance, conceded to us alone, that we wish; it is the adoption absolute of the principle that no man, born red, black or white, can be the property of his fellow man.
Toussaint Louverture
#62. The People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Frank Norris
#63. The sky is dark. But to understand something is to give light. Those who deny liberty to the slaves may have white skins, but their consciences are blacker than the skin of the Negro.
Roman Baldorioty De Castro
#64. I took the liberty in Snowboarding to Nirvana to do a type of parody of what I suppose you would call "New Age fiction."
Frederick Lenz
#65. Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
Bertrand Russell
#66. It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.
Marie Curie
#67. Arminian notion of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the will's Self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world.
Jonathan Edwards
#68. The Pledge of Allegiance says " ... with liberty and justice for all." What part of "all" don't you understand?
Patricia Schroeder
#69. Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#70. Not far from here where we gather today is a symbol of freedom familiar to all Americans - the Liberty Bell. When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public, the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, and a witness said: "It rang as if it meant something."
George W. Bush
#71. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people ... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ... what Africans need is personal liberty ... [and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law.
Walter E. Williams
#72. Wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here as in the case of trade: impositions and restrictions reduce it to a low ebb; nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.
Anthony Ashley Cooper
#73. Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
William Godwin
#75. For that which you mention concerning liberty of conscience, I meddle not with any man's conscience.
Oliver Cromwell
#76. Money is a kind of freedom that can be felt and heard; it is an inestimable treasure for a man entirely deprived of true liberty.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#77. He turned. "She would never marry for wordly advantage."
"Yet when she experiences the consequence she gains in such a marriage, she will feel compensated for giving up her freedom!"
"Her freedom!"
"I think her much at liberty.
Helen Halstead
#78. What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be prepared in all things.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#79. Only a few prefer liberty- the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.
Sallust
#80. Political democracy cannot flourish under all economic conditions. Democracy requires an economic system which supports the political ideals of liberty and equality for all. Men cannot exercise freedom in the political sphere when they are deprived of it in the economic sphere.
Mortimer Adler
#81. While he loved liberty, he detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Jon J. Ingalls
Alexis De Tocqueville
#82. If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us?
We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all the women of the earth.
Ayn Rand
#83. By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.
George W. Bush
#85. Every time the Secretary of Defense tries to get a hand on his many intelligence programs, we hear warnings about the dire consequences to liberty. When you look behind those warnings, what you really see is the CIA trying to preserve its perks.
Mark Riebling
#86. Nothing harms or destroys us but the wrong use of that liberty of choice which God has entrusted to us.
William Law
#87. When liberty is taken away by force, it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished by default it can never be recovered.
Dorothy Thompson
#88. Everybody in the world is - is ready for liberty. It's a question of how you do it.
Ahmed Zewail
#89. 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
Friedrich August Von Hayek
#90. The hungry and the homeless don't care about liberty any more than they care about cultural heritage. To pretend that they do care is cant.
E. M. Forster
#91. I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
Wole Soyinka
#92. I would have the Constitution torn in shreds and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Let us destroy the Constitution and build on its ruins the temple of liberty. I have brothers in slavery. I have seen chains placed on their limbs and beheld them captive.
William Wells Brown
#93. A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.
George Berkeley
#94. So we passed, handcuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington, through the Captial of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man's inalienable right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!
Solomon Northup
#95. The Root of All Rebellion: It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own different from thine.
George MacDonald
#96. What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty?
Edmund Spenser
#97. Let us give up our longing for welfare, our love of war, and our desire to see the government control and shape our fellow citizens. We must come to imagine liberty again, and believe that it can be a reality. We must recapture what it means to be free.
Ron Paul
#98. Let all Americans - let all lovers of liberty everywhere - join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving.
Abraham Lincoln
#99. A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.
Daniel Webster
#100. An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.
Maria Montessori
