quotations about liberty
Liberty ... is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed upon man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall a man.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regards as the public good.
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
The Constitution of Liberty
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 preferred to all things.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
The spirit of liberty must be cherished, if we would elevate, purify, and strengthen the fibre of the nation.
ARNAUD DE L'ARIEGE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical and Historical Essays
Liberty is potential. To create a free being is to place before it the problem of its destiny.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
GIDEON J. TUCKER
Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Lafayette, The Thomas Jefferson Papers
The word liberty has been falsely used by persons who, being degenerately profligate in private life, and mischievous in public, had no hope left but in fomenting discord.
TACITUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Abigail Adams, Jul. 17, 1775
It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
EARL WARREN
United States v. Robel
Establish liberty on a rock of brass.
MAXIMILIEN DE ROBESPIERRE
report of the 18 Pluvoise, Year II
Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.
MARY MCCARTHY
The Contagion of Ideas
What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE
The Crisis
A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
A lion is at liberty who can follow the laws of his own nature, who can eat when his stomach tells him, who can sleep when his fierce eyes grow weary, who can scratch long furrows in a forest tree when his claws feel so disposed. He is not at liberty when he lives in a cage, is fed on horseflesh at 4 p.m., and is compelled at the point of a red-hot poker to spell P-I-G -- PIG, in the presence of a diverted crowd.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Intellectual Slavery
There are two kinds of people I could anathematize with a better weapon than St. Peter's -- those who dare deprive others of their liberty, and those who suffer others to do it.
JOHN LEDYARD
Travels and Adventures of John Ledyard