quotations about liberty
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous -- if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
The Ghosts and Other Lectures
Let us prefer the lonely cottage, while blest with liberty, to gilded palaces, surrounded with the ensigns of slavery.
JOSEPH WARREN
attributed, Day's Collacon
I have no intention of arguing for liberty, because I believe it to be an irrational verity, one which must be assumed, and which can never be demonstrated. Every one, the veriest sceptic included, believes in liberty, and believes in it naturally and invincibly. He cannot emancipate himself from the belief that he has a power of option between two courses of action, though he may have created a system in which he has demonstrated that liberty is impossible.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
PATRICK HENRY
speech at the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond, Virginia, Mar. 23, 1775
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
attributed, If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?
When the creature takes full possession of the liberty it has received it becomes a person.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
When all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
The liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity, or his human right through the conscience of all free men, his brothers and his equals.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Man, Society, and Freedom
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
"How to Reform Mankind", Works
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN
speech, July 10, 1790
All we have left of liberty is an ad-man's illusion.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
The Illusion of the End
Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of liberty.
MARIA EDGEWORTH
The Good Aunt
It is easy to cut down the tree of liberty, but not so easy to restore it to life.
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961
Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
PLATO
The Republic
Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.
ANNIE BESANT
The Political Thought of Annie Besant
While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to him only in this case they are answerable.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Benedict Arnold, Sep. 14, 1775
Social order is better preserved by liberty than by restraint.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty.
VICTOR HUGO
Les Miserables
The breath of liberty is sweet.
MARY J. HOLMES
Lena Rivers