LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Liberty,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
(Source)
Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911). Originally published in the "Devil's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Wasp (1886-08-14).
Quotations about:
liberty
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They call for freedom and then they attack the courts which protect that freedom.
They call for freedom and they would strip away the rights of those accused of crime, rights developed over centuries to protect against arbitrary power.
They call for freedom and yet accuse their opponents of being soft on communism or even worse, branding as heretics or traitors all those who ever disagree with them.
They call for freedom and they attack our religious leaders for trying to exercise their ancient responsibility — as clergymen and citizens — to guide people in the course of life.
But worst of all, they call for freedom and yet they help create the atmosphere of hate and fear and suspicion in which individual liberty faces its maximum danger.Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-10-31), Presidential Campaign, Madison Square Garden, New York City
(Source)
On the Republican Goldwater/Miller ticket and their supporters during the 1964 elections.
Hee that marries for wealth sells his liberty.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 784 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, Part 1 “England Your England,” sec. 2 (1941)
(Source)
This college, therefore, from its earliest beginnings, has recognized and its graduates have recognized, that the purpose of education is not merely to advance the economic self-interest of its graduates. The people of California, as much if not more than the people of any other State, have supported their colleges and universities and their schools because they recognize how important it is to the maintenance of a free society that its citizens be well educated.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech (1962-03-23), University of California, Berkeley
(Source)
The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.
Of all creation’s bounty realized,
God’s greatest gift, the gift in which mankind
is most like Him, the gift by Him most prized,
is the freedom he bestowed upon the will.
All his intelligent creatures, and they alone,
were so endowed, and so endowed are still.[Lo maggior don che Dio per sua larghezza
fesse creando, e a la sua bontate
più conformato, e quel ch’e’ più apprezza,
fu de la volontà la libertate;
di che le creature intelligenti,
e tutte e sole, fuore e son dotate.]Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet
The Divine Comedy [Divina Commedia], Book 3 “Paradiso,” Canto 5, l. 19ff (5.19-24) [Beatrice] (1320) [tr. Ciardi (1970)]
(Source)
(Source (Italian)). Alternate translations:That gem above all price by wifdom giv'n.
The most distinguish'd boon of fav'ring Heav'n,
The Stamp of Godhead on the human breast,
By him most priz'd, is Liberty of Choice;
A gift by none beneath the ambient Skies
But happy rationals alone possest.
[tr. Boyd (1802), st. 5]Supreme of gifts, which God creating gave
Of his free bounty, sign most evident
Of goodness, and in his account most priz’d,
Was liberty of will, the boon wherewith
All intellectual creatures, and them sole
He hath endow’d.
[tr. Cary (1814)]The greatest gift that God, creating, gave
Of his great bounty, and his goodness cost,
And that which he appreciated the most,
Was human liberty and our free will;
With which the creatures of intelligence,
And they alone, were dowered as with sense.
[tr. Bannerman (1850)]The greatest gift that in his largess God
Creating made, and unto his own goodness
Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize
Most highly, is the freedom of the will,
Wherewith the creatures of intelligence
Both all and only were and are endowed.
[tr. Longfellow (1867)]The greatest gift which God of His bounty made in creating, and the most conformed to His goodness, and that which He most values, was the freedom of the will, wherewith the creatures that have intelligence all, and they only, were and are endowed.
[tr. Butler (1885)]The greatest gift which God's creating grace
Made in His largess, to His clemency
The most conformed, and prized as first in place
Was of the will the perfect liberty,
With which the creatures of intelligence
Were dowered, and are, and they alone.
[tr. Minchin (1885)]The greatest gift which God in His largess bestowed in creating, and the most conformed unto His goodness and that which He esteems the most, was the freedom of the will, with which all the creatures of intelligence, and they alone, were and are endowed.
[tr. Norton (1892)]The greatest gift God of his largess made at the creation, and the most conformed to his own excellence, and which he most prizeth,
was the will's liberty, wherewith creatures intelligent, both all and only, were and are endowed.
[tr. Wicksteed (1899)]The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, the most conformable to His goodness and the one He accounts the most precious, was the freedom of the will, with which the creatures with intelligence, all and only these, were and are endowed.
[tr. Sinclair (1939)]Of all the gifts God in His bounty extreme
Made when creating, most conformable
To His own goodness, and in His esteem
Most precious, was the liberty of the will,
With which creatures that are intelligent
Were all endowed, they only, and are so still.
[tr. Binyon (1943)]The greatest gift of God’s largesse, when He
Created all, most prized by Him, and best,
As most akin to His own quality,
Was the will's freedom, crown of all the rest,
Whereof all creatures made intelligent,
They all, they only, were and are possessed.
[tr. Sayers/Reynolds (1962)]The greatest gift which God in His bounty
bestowed in creating, and to His own goodness
the most conformed, and that which He prizes the most,
was of the will the freedom,
with which the creatures that have intelligence,
they all and they alone, were and are endowed.
[tr. Singleton (1975)]The greatest gift which God in his open-handedness
Gave in creation, and the gift which most conformed
To his own excellence, and which he most values,
Was that of freedom of the will,
With which creatures created intelligent,
Each and all of them, were and are endowed.
[tr. Sisson (1981)]The greatest gift the magnanimity
of God, as He created, gave, the gift
most suited to His goodness, gift that He
most prizes, was the freedom of the will;
those beings that have intellect -- all these
and none but these -- received and do receive this gift.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1984)]The greatest gift that our bounteous Lord
bestowed as the Creator, in creating,
the gift He cherishes the most, the one
most like Himself, was freedom of the will,
All creatures with intelligence, and they
alone, were so endowed both then and now.
[tr. Musa (1984)]The greatest gift that ever in his bountifulness God gave in creating, and the most conformed to his goodness, the one that is most prized,
was the freedom of the will, with which the creatures with intelligence, all of them and only they, were and are endowed.
[tr. Durling (2011)]The greatest gift that God made at the Creation, out of his munificence, the one that most fitted his supreme goodness, and which he values most, is Free Will, with which intelligent creatures, all and sundry, were, and are, endowed.
[tr. Kline (2002)]The greatest gift that God, in spacious deed,
made, all-creating -- and most nearly formed
to His liberality, most prized by Him --
was liberty in actions of the will,
with which all creatures of intelligence --
and they alone -- both were and are endowed.
[tr. Kirkpatrick (2007)]The greatest gift that God in His largesse
gave to creation, the most attuned
to His goodness and that He accounts most dear,
was the freedom of the will:
all creatures possessed of intellect,
all of them and they alone, were and are so endowed.
[tr. Hollander/Hollander (2007)]The greatest gift that God, in infinite bounty,
Bestowed on His creation, and the quality
Most like His goodness, as well as what He prices,
Was freedom of will, granted only to creatures
Of intelligence -- exclusively for them,
No others thus endowed.
[tr. Raffel (2010)]
For ourselves and for the present, we are safe; our immediate peril is past. But for how long are we safe; and how far have we removed our peril? If our nation could not itself exist half slave and half free, are we sure that it can exist in a world half slave and half free? Is the same conflict less irrepressible when world wide than it was eighty years ago when it was only nation wide? Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“A Pledge of Allegiance,” speech, Central Park, New York City (1945-05-20)
(Source)
His second "I Am an American Day" address. Collected in The Spirit of Liberty (1953).
The other threat to the security of our tradition, I believe, lies at home. It is the current fear of radical ideas and of people who propound them. I do not agree with extremists of either the left or the right, but I think they should be allowed to speak and to publish, both because they themselves have, and ought to have, rights, and once their rights are gone, the rights of the rest of us are hardly safe.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
“No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)
(Source)
Foreword to her response to a State Department Loyalty Security Board interrogatory (1952-03-25). Reprinted in Vital Little Plans (2016).
I do not think military readiness, in itself, will defeat Communism. I do not think we can consider the job finished with that. I think it buys us time to do the bigger job. We must demonstrate that it is possible to overcome poverty, misery and decay by democratic means, and that we must ourselves believe, and must show others, that our American tradition of the dignity and liberty of the individual is not a luxury for easy times but is the basic source of strength and security of a successful society.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
“No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)
(Source)
Foreword to her response to a State Department Loyalty Security Board interrogatory (1952-03-25). Reprinted in Vital Little Plans (2016).
Perish all they who love to dwell in cities
subject to Kings, or to the mighty few,
For Freedom’s an invaluable name,
and he who hath but little, here is rich.[κακῶς δ’ ὄλοιντο πάντες οἳ τυραννίδι
χαίρουσιν ὀλίγῃ τ’ ἐν πόλει μοναρχίᾳ·
τοὐλεύθερον γὰρ ὄνομα παντὸς ἄξιον,
κἂν σμίκρ’ ἔχῃ τις, μεγάλ’ ἔχειν νομιζέτω.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Auge [Αὐγῃ], fr. 275 (TGF) (c. 408 BC) [tr. Wodhall (1809)]
(Source)
Nauck frag. 275, Barnes frag. 10, Musgrave frag. 7. (Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:Pray that all who rejoice in tyranny,
Or in some small monarchy in their city, die terribly.
The name "freedom" is worth everything --
Even if he possesses a little, a man who has this is considered great.
[@sententiq (2015)]Worth above all is a name fit for the free.
[Source]
A wise man neither lets himself be governed nor seeks to govern others: he wishes reason alone to govern, and for ever.
[Un homme sage ni ne se laisse gouverner, ni ne cherche à gouverner les autres: il veut que la raison gouverne seule et toujours.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 4 “Of the Heart [Du Coeur],” § 71 (4.71) (1688) [tr. Stewart (1970)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:A Wise Man neither suffers himself to be govern'd, nor attempts to govern others. 'Tis his reason alone which always governs him.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]A Wise Man neither suffers himself to be govern'd, nor attempts to govern others. He wou'd have Reason alone always to govern him.
[Curll ed. (1713)]An intelligent man neither allows himself to be controlled nor attempts to control others; he wishes reason alone to rule, and that always.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans — not as Democrats or Republicans — we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal” — “government by consent of the governed” — “give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test — to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth — is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1965-03-15), “The American Promise,” Joint Session of Congress [07:41]
(Source)
Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) American writer, historian, social reformer [William Edward Burghardt Du Bois]
John Brown, ch. 13 “The Legacy of John Brown” (1909)
(Source)
On the policy among white colonial powers that non-whites "ought to be under the restraint and benevolent tutelage of stronger and wiser nations for their own benefit," until they are "capable" of being free.
No form of liberty is worth a darn which doesn’t give us the right to do wrong now and then.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 3, § 16 (1916)
(Source)
On the necessary points, unity. On the questionable points, liberty. In everything, love.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Misattributed)
A commentary on theological / doctrinal dispute, frequently attributed to Augustine, but not found in his works.
The first known occurrence of such an expression is in Marco Antonio de Dominis, De Republica Ecclesiastica, Book 4, ch. 8, penultimate sentence (1617):Omnesque mutuam amplecteremur unitatem in necessariis, in non necessariis libertatem, in omnibus caritatem.
[And let us all embrace one another, unity in what is necessary, liberty in what is not necessary, charity in all things.]
The phrase was also adapted by Richard Baxter (1615-1691) as his motto. See also Rupertus Meldenius (1626).
More discussion about this quotation here: Liber locorum communium: In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas (Marco Antonio De Dominis, 1617), cf. In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas (and other variants). English: "In essentials unity ..."
I never diskuss politiks nor sektarianism; i beleave in letting every man fight hiz rooster hiz own way.
[I never discuss politics nor [religious] sectarianism; I believe in letting every man fight his rooster his own way.]Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 131 “Affurisms: Plum Pits (1)” (1874)
(Source)
We want perfection in other people, and yet we do not put right our own failings. We want to see others firmly corrected, but we refuse correction ourselves. We take offence when permission is given to others, but we do not want our own requests refused. We want rules to check the activities of others, but we are indignant at restrictions on ourselves.
[Libenter videmus alios perfectos, sed tamen proprios non emendamus defectus. Volumus quod alii districte corrigantur, et nos ipsi corrigi nolumus, aut negari quod petimus. Alios restringi per statuta volumus, et ipsi nullatenus patimur amplius cohiberi.]
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471) German-Dutch priest, author
The Imitation of Christ [De Imitatione Christi], Book 1, ch. 16, v. 2ff (1.16.2-3) (c. 1418-27) [tr. Knott (1962)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:We would gladly have others perfect, but will not amend our own defaults. We would that others should be straitly corrected for their offences, but we will not be corrected. It misliketh us that others have liberty, but we will not be denied of that we ask. We would also that others should be restrained according to the statutes, but we in nowise will be restrained.
[tr. Whitford/Raynal (1530/1871)]We would gladly have others perfect, yet we will not amend our own faults. We desire others to be strictly corrected for their offenses, yet we will not be corrected. We dislike it that others have liberty, yet we will not be denied what we ask. We desire that others should be restrained according to the laws, yet we will in no way be restrained.
[tr. Whitford/Gardiner (1530/1955)]It is injustice to expect that in another which thou hast not in thy self, to looke for perfection in others, and yet not to amend imperfections in our selves. We will have others severely punisht, and will not amend our selves; the large liberty of others disliketh us, and yet we will not have our desires deni'd us, we will have rigorous Lawes imposed upon others, but in no sort will we our selves be restrained.
[tr. Page (1639), 1.16.8-9]And, indeed, nothing is more common, than to express exceeding Zeal in amending our Neighbours, and mighty Indignation against Their Vices or Imperfections, while at the same time we neglect the beginning at Home, and either quite overlook, or seem highly contented with our own. We set up for Reformers, declaim at the Wickendess of the Age, and are all for suppressing and punishing it by vigorous Laws; and yet are unwilling that any Check or Restraint should be put upon our own Freedoms.
[tr. Stanhope (1696; 1706 ed.)]But we require perfection in the rest of mankind, and take no care to rectify the disorders of our own heart; we desire that the faults of others should be severely punished, and refuse the gentlest correction ourselves; we are offended at their licentiousness, and yet cannot bear the least opposition to our own immoderate desires. We would subject all to the control of rigorous statute and penal laws, but will not suffer any restraint upon our own actions.
[tr. Payne (1803), 1.16.3]We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults. We will have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeaseth us; and yet we will not have our own desires denied us. We will have others kept under by strict laws; but in no sort will ourselves be restrained.
[ed. Parker (1841)]We willingly require perfection in the rest of mankind, and yet do not rectify the disorders of our own hearts. We desire that the faults of others should be severely punished, and refuse the gentlest correction ourselves. We are offended at their licentiousness, and yet cannot bear the least denial of our own immoderate desires. We would subject all to the control of rigorous statutes, but suffer no restraint upon our own action.
[tr. Dibdin (1851)]We would fain have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own defects. We would have others strictly corrected, but will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeases us, and yet we would not be denied anything we ask for. We wish others to be bound down by laws, and we suffer ourselves to be in no sort restrained.
[ed. Bagster (1860)]We are ready to see others made perfect, and yet we do not amend our own shortcomings. We will that others be straitly corrected, but we will not be corrected ourselves. The freedom of others displeaseth us, but we are dissatisfied that our own wishes shall be denied us. We desire rules to be made restraining others, but by no means will we suffer ourselves to be restrained.
[tr. Benham (1874)]We are desirous to have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults. We will have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeaseth us; and yet we will not have our own desires denied us. We will have others kept under by strict laws; but in no sort will we ourselves be restrained.
[tr. Anon. (1901)]We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves. Their great liberty displeases us, yet we would not be denied what we ask. We would have them bound by laws, yet we will allow ourselves to be restrained in nothing.
[tr. Croft/Bolton (1940)]We would readily have others perfect and yet not amend our own defects. We want others rigidly corrected and are unwilling to be corrected ourselves. The wide freedom of others displeases us, and yet we would not be denied whatever we ask. We wish others to be bound by rules, and will ourselves in no way be held in.
[tr. Daplyn (1952)]For we require other people to be perfect, but do not correct our own faults. We wish to see others severely reprimanded; yet we are unwilling to be corrected ourselves. We wish to restrict the liberty of others, but are not willing to be denied anything ourselves. We wish others to be bound by rules, yet we will not let ourselves be bound.
[tr. Sherley-Price (1952)]We like to have everybody around us quite perfect, but our own faults -- we never seem to correct them. Tom, Dick and Harry must be strictly called to order, but we aren't fond of being called to order ourselves. It is always the other man that has too much rope given him -- our wishes must not be thwarted; rules for everybody else, but our own liberties must not be abridged for a moment.
[tr. Knox-Oakley (1959), 1.16.3]Though quick to expect perfection in others, we take little care to correct our own shortcomings. We wouidl have others strictly corrected, but not ourselves. The wide freedom of others displeases us, yet we wish to be denied nothing that we ourselves desire. We would have others under the restraint of the rule while unwilling ourselves to be under any sort of restraint.
[tr. Rooney (1979)]We would willingly have others be perfect, and yet we fail to correct our own faults. We want others to be strictly corrected, and yet we are unwilling to be corrected ourselves. Other peoples' far-ranging freedom annoys us, and yet we insist on having our own way. We wish others to be tied down by rules, and yet we will not allow ourselves to be held in check in any way at all.
[tr. Creasy (1989)]
The First Amendment is truly the heart of the Bill of Rights. The Framers balanced its freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition against the needs of a powerful central government, and decided that in those freedoms lies this nation’s only true security. They were not afraid for men to be free. We should not be.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
James Madison Lecture, NYU School of Law (1960-02-17)
(Source)
The inaugural Madison lecture. Reprinted as "The Bill of Rights," NYU Law Review, Vol. 35 (1960-04).
This Sir, was a time in which you clearly saw into the injustice of a State of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition, it was now Sir, that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publickly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remember’d in all Succeeding ages. “We hold these truths to be Self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness.”
Here Sir, was a time in which your tender feelings for your selves had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great valuation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings to which you were entitled by nature; but Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the Same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.
Freedom is more precious than any gifts for which you may be tempted to give it up.
[Más preciosa es la libertad que la dádiva, porque se pierde.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 286 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:Liberty is more precious than all gifts: and to receive, is to lose it.>br?
[Flesher ed. (1685)]Independence is more precious, than any gift for which you might forfeit it.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]Freedom is more precious then the gift that makes us lose it.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
I have begun in old age to understand just how oddly we are all put together. We are so proud of our autonomy that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others. One of the booby traps of freedom — which is bordered on all sides by isolation — is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life’s banquet.
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian-American writer, philosopher
The Fountainhead, ch. 18 [Roark] (1943)
(Source)
Democracy is based on a profound insight into human nature, the realization that all men are sinful, all are imperfect, all are prejudiced, and none knows the whole truth. That is why we need liberty and why we have an obligation to hear all men. Liberty gives us a chance to learn from other people, to become aware of our own limitations, and to correct our bias. Even when we disagree with other people we like to think that they speak from good motives, and while we realize that all men are limited, we do not let ourselves imagine that any man is bad. Democracy is a political system for people who are not sure that they are right.
E. E. Schattschneider (1892-1971) American political scientist [Elmer Eric Schattschneider]
Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government (1969)
(Source)
Most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty.
Lucy Parsons (1851-1942) American labor organizer, anarchist, orator [a.k.a. Lucy Gonzalez]
“The Principles of Anarchism,” lecture (1905)
(Source)
We’re stronger because we’re democracies. We’re not afraid of free and fair elections, because true legitimacy can only come from one source — and that is the people. We’re not afraid of an independent judiciary, because no one is above the law. We’re not afraid of a free press or vibrant debate or a strong civil society, because leaders must be held accountable. We’re not afraid to let our young people go online to learn and discover and organize , because we know that countries are more successful when citizens are free to think for themselves.
Barack Obama (b. 1961) American politician, US President (2009-2017)
Speech, Nordea Concert Hall, Tallinn, Estonia (3 Sep 2014)
(Source)
But we must recognize that democracies don’t stop just with elections; they also depend on strong institutions and a vibrant civil society, and open political space, and tolerance of people who are different than you. We have to create an environment where the rights of every citizen, regardless of race or gender, or religion or sexual orientation are not only protected, but respected.
Barack Obama (b. 1961) American politician, US President (2009-2017)
Speech, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (27 Apr 2014)
(Source)
Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much he feels himself thereby appointed his brother’s keeper.
Everett Dean Martin (1880-1941) American educator, minister, writer, lecturer
Liberty (1930)
(Source)
Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, Preface (1954)
(Source)
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs). […] The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
Letter to Christopher Tolkien (1943-11-29)
(Source)
Letter 52 in Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981).
You know, you have to really decide where you want to live: if you want to live in the jungle or in the zoo. Because if you want the beauty, if you want freedom, the jungle is … that’s your world. But you’re in danger there, you have to live with snakes, sharks, tigers, skunks, you know, mosquitoes, leeches. You want to be safe, you have to live in the zoo. You are protected. You know, if you are a lamb, the tiger will not attack you. You know, you’ll get a little bit something to eat every day; that’s fine. You have to work hard, but you live behind the bars, and what’s wonderful — you live there behind the bars and you dream about the beauty of the jungle. Now what happened was that the bars opened, and everybody runs after the dream. And suddenly, well, yeah, it’s beautiful — yes, I am free to go wherever I want, do whatever I want, but where do I want to go? Oh, my God, and here is a tiger and here’s a snake. Oh, oh, and people have a tendency to, you know, back. And you will be surprised how many people prefer to live in the zoo; they are not ready to pay for the freedom; they think that freedom should be, you know, for free, even for granted, which never is, never is.
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (1932-2018) Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, academic
National Security Archive interview (18 Jan 1997)
(Source)
On life and work in the post-Communist world.
The oldest argument against SF is both the shallowest and the profoundest: the assertion that SF, like all fantasy, is escapist. […] If it’s worth answering, the best answer is given by Tolkien, author, critic, and scholar. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the know-nothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
“Escape Routes,” Galaxy (Dec 1974)
Reprinted in The Language of the Night (1979).
Though Le Guin makes it clear it's a paraphrase, the main body of this passage is often misrepresented as an actual quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien (and with an exclamation point on the final sentence). It was, instead, inspired by Tolkien's comments on escapism in "On Fairy-Stories" (1939).
More discussion on this quotation: Not a Tolkien quote: "Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory" - thetolkienist.com
[The first principle of British democracy is] our prime duty to each other and to what our conscience tells us to be right. If this leads individuals into conflict with the law, those individuals must be ready to take the consequences non-violently. In our democracy no man should tell another man to break the law, nor should any man break the law to by-pass Parliament. But a person who is punished for breaking an unjust law may if he is sincere and his cause wins public sympathy, create a public demand to have that unjust law changed through Parliament. This is the first and most fundamental principle of British democracy. It has a deep moral significance. Our religious and political liberties rest upon it.
The nature of liberal democracy prevents propagandistic statements from being banned, since among the liberties it permits is the freedom of speech. But since humans have characteristic rational weaknesses and are susceptible to flattery and manipulation, allowing propaganda has a high likelihood of leading to tyranny, and hence to the end of liberal democracy.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Propaganda Works, ch. 1 (2015)
(Source)
It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Speech to the Jury, Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy, Morristown, New Jersey (May 1887)
(Source)
Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else’s religion practiced on us.
John Irving (b. 1942) American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter [b. John Wallace Blunt Jr.]
My Movie Business, ch. 8 (1999)
(Source)
If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017)
(Source)
The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Some Mistakes of Moses, ch. 3 “The Politicians” (1879)
(Source)
There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
“What Modern Liberty Means,” Liberty and the News (1920)
(Source)
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
(Attributed)
Freedom only means the freedom to be stupid. Because you don’t need freedom to do what everybody thinks you should.
Penn Jillette (b. 1955) American stage magician, actor, musician, author
“Honest Questions with Penn Jillette,” Interview by Glen Beck, CNN (2 Nov 2007)
(Source)
Economics is the art of allocating scarce goods among competing demands. The conceit of Marxism was the thought that in Communism, economics would be “abolished”; this was why one did not have to think about the questions of relative privilege and social justice. But the point is that we still have to think about economics, and probably always will. The question, then, is whether we can arrive at a set of normative rules which seek to protect liberty, reward achievement and enhance the social good, within the constraints of “economics”.
Daniel Bell (1919-2011) American sociologist, writer, editor, academic
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)
“The right to think, to know and to utter,” as John Milton said, is the dearest of all liberties. Without this right, there can be no liberty to any people; with it, there can be no slavery.
John A. Andrew (1818-1867) American lawyer, politician, abolitionist
Letter (1860)
(Source)
Letter written after his election as Massachusetts governor. referencing Milton's Areopagitica. Quoted by Wendell Phillips in his "Mobs and Education" speech (16 Dec 1860), and often attributed to Phillips.
In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty. On the horizon the clouds begin to lower. Liberty calls to us again. We must follow her further; we must trust her fully. Either we must wholly accept her or she will not stay. It is not enough that men should vote; it is not enough that they should be theoretically equal before the law. They must have liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or Liberty withdraws her light! Either this, or darkness comes on, and the very forces that progress has evolved turn to powers that work destruction. This is the universal law. This is the lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations be laid in justice the social structure cannot stand.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
The Law of Human Progress, Book 10, ch. 5 “The Central Truth” (1879)
(Source)
The greatest bloodshed? The most murders? I would say two things: sincere love and a sincere devotion to liberty. … If you kill out of love or for the perfect utopia, you never stop killing because human nature is always imperfect.
Peter Viereck (1916-2006) American poet, historian, academic
“Clio is No Cleo: The Messiness of History,” lecture, Mt. Holyoke College (1997)
(Source)
Reprinted in Society (Mar 2004) and collected in Strict Wildness (2008).
The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States does not import an absolute right in each person to be at all times, and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. […] Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members. […] In every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.
John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) American lawyer, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1877-1911)
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (20 Feb 1905) [majority opinion]
(Source)
Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Our cases recognize “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” Our precedents “have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.” These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.
Anthony Kennedy (b. 1936) US Supreme Court Justice
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (91-744), 505 U.S. 833 (29 Jun 1992) [Majority Opinion]
(Source)
Citations removed.
A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) Greek writer and philosopher
Zorba the Greek (1946)
Adapted in the 1964 screenplay by Mihalis Kakogiannis as:ZORBA: Boss, I like you too much not to say it. You've got everything except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else.
BASIL: Or else?
ZORBA: Or else, he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Any power must be the enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force, whether it arises under a Fascist or Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends on the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Press statement, England (15 Sep 1933)
(Source)
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
“The Political System of the Popes,” The Rambler, n.s. 2 (1860-01)
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Note #10, in George Watson, Lord Acton’s History of Liberty (1994)
(Source)
Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society, when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its instincts are perverse. They presume to stop it in its downward course, and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from heaven, intelligence and virtues that place them beyond and above mankind: let them show their title to this superiority.
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) French philosopher, economist, politician
The Law (1850)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; it so, let them show their titles to this superiority." [Source]
We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Tercentenary of the Areopagitica,” Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
(Source)
It is worse than useless to try to put down by law a practice which a very large number of people believes to be innocent, and which must be left to the taste and conscience of the individual.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“The Birth-Rate” (1917), Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
(Source)
Speaking of birth control.
Let us shun extremes, not only because each extreme is in itself a positive evil, but also because each extreme necessarily engenders its opposite. If we love civil and religious freedom, let us in the day of danger uphold law and order. If we are zealous for law and order, let us prize, as the best safeguard of law and order, civil and religious freedom.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
Speech on re-election to Parliament, Edinburgh (2 Nov 1852)
(Source)
Let me point out to you that freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military in order to be unfree when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
“Notes for a Hypothetical Novel,” speech, San Francisco College (22 Oct 1960)
(Source)
Later published in Nobody Knows My Name (1961).
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten.
Frances "Fanny" Wright (1795-1852) Scottish-American writer, lecturer, social reformer
A Course of Popular Lectures, Lecture 6 “Formation of Opinions” (1829)
(Source)
Conscience and the press ought to be unrestrained, not because men have a right to deviate from the exact line that duty prescribes, but because society, the aggregate of individuals, has no right to assume the prerogative of an infallible judge, and to undertake authoritatively to prescribe to its members in matters of pure speculation.
William Godwin (1756-1836) English journalist, political philosopher, novelist
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book 2, ch. 5 (1793)
(Source)
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
The English, of all ranks and classes, are at bottom, in all their feelings, aristocrats. They have some concept of liberty, & set some value on it, but the very idea of equality is strange & offensive to them. They do not dislike to have many people above them as long as they have some below them.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
Letter to Giussepe Mazzini (15 Apr 1858)
(Source)
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
William James (Will) Durant (1885-1981) American historian, teacher, philosopher
(Attributed)
Only the tiniest fraction of mankind want freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them they are free.
Irving Layton (1912-2006) Romanian-Canadian poet [b. Israel Pincu Lazarovitch]
The Whole Bloody Bird, “Obs II” (1969)
Comfort and habits let us be ready to forgo, but I am not ready for a creed which does not care how much it destroys the liberty and security of daily life, which uses deliberately the weapons of persecution, destruction and international strife. How can I admire a policy which finds a characteristic expression in spending millions to suborn spies in every family and group at home, and to stir up trouble abroad?
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
“A Short View of Russia” (1925)
This is the affirmation on which democracy rests … [W]e can all be responsible … We become what we do. So does the world we live in, if enough of us do it — whether “it” be good or detestable. This is the burden of freedom: that it is all our fault or our credit.
Herbert Agar (1897-1980) American journalist and historian
“The Perils of Democracy” (1966)
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in Freedom’s hallowed shade.John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Written in an Album (1842)
Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Letter to James Lloyd (1 Oct 1822)
He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means “I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve”. It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
I, Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
“A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” (1765)
(Source)
One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor not only to found a nation, but to forge an ideal of freedom — not only for political independence, but for personal liberty — not only to eliminate foreign rule, but to establish the rule of justice in the affairs of men. That struggle was a turning point in our history. Today in far corners of distant continents, the ideals of those American patriots still shape the struggles of men who hunger for freedom. This is a proud triumph. Yet those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-07-02), Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Washington, D.C.
(Source)
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
Speech, Virginia Ratifying Convention (6 Jun 1788)
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
(Source)
Paraphrase: "The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge -- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
John Milton (1608-1674) English poet
Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644)
(Source)
The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty.
Fisher Ames (1758-1808) American politician, orator
“The Dangers of American Liberty” (1805)
(Source)
Freedom is worth paying for.
[La liberté vaut qu’on la paye.]
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Part 2, ch. 8 “Vigo Bay” (1870)
(Source)
Because, therefore, we are defending a way of life, we must be respectful of that way of life as we proceed to the solution of our problem. We must not violate its principles and its precepts, and we must not destroy from within what we are trying to defend from without.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, NATO Council (26 Nov 1951)
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“What Makes a Life Significant,” Lecture, Harvard (1899)
Reprinted in Talks to Teachers on Psychology, Part 2, Lecture 3.
In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes down they will still know hunger. They will see suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease. So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict will be sown.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Tenth Colombo Plan Meeting, Seattle (10 Nov 1958)
The conflict to different approaches to the liberty of man and mind or between different views of human dignity and the right of the individual is continuous. The dividing line goes within ourselves, within our own peoples, and also within other nations. It does not coincide with any political or geographical boundaries. The ultimate fight is one between the human and the subhuman. We are on dangerous ground if we believe that any individual, any nation, or any ideology has a monopoly on rightness, liberty, and human dignity.
Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961) Swedish diplomat, author, UN Secretary-General (1953-61)
“The Walls of Distrust,” speech, Cambridge University (5 Jun 1958)
While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. (1862-1948) American statesman, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916, 1930-1941)
Speech (4 Mar 1939)
Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
Speech, accepting the GOP Presidential Nomination, San Francisco (16 Jul 1964)
Of what use is political liberty to those who have no bread?
Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) French physician, political theorist, scientist, journalist
Letter to Camille Desmoulins (24 Jun 1790)
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 3 “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” (1859)
(Source)
Trading privacy for security is stupid enough; not getting any actual security in the bargain is even more stupid.
Cory Doctorow (b. 1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, activist, author
Little Brother (2008)
In America we can say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we can say it anyhow.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
If we cannot trust woman with the knowledge of her own body, then I claim that two thousand years of Christian teaching has proved to be a failure.
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) American birth control activist, sex educator, nurse
“The Morality of Birth Control,” speech, Park Theatre, New York (18 Nov 1921)
(Source)
The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Speech, New York Press Club (9 Sep 1912)
True liberty shows itself to best advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially of minorities.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Lecture (1910-06-07), “Biological Analogies in History,” Romanes Lecture, Oxford University
(Source)
I believe any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Why Liberty?” Chicago Tribune (30 Jan 1927)
Individualism in one sense the only possible ideal; for whatever social order may be most valuable can be valuable only for its effect on conscious individuals.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 2 “Reason in Society,” ch. 2 “The Family” (1905-06)
(Source)
The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Speech, Buckinghamshire (1784)
A brave people will certainly prefer liberty, accompanied by virtuous poverty, to a depraved and wealthy servitude.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Our liberty cannot be taken away unless the people are themselves accomplices.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751) English politician, government official, political philosopher [Lord Bolingbroke]
A Dissertation upon Parties (1735)
Liberty, like charity, must begin at home.
James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) American chemist, academic, diplomat
“Our Fighting Faith, Our Unique Heritage,” address, Harvard (20 Jun 1942)
There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations; they have no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 3 “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” (1859)
In addition to all the weaknesses, dilemmas and temptations that impede every pilgrim’s progress, the Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy — who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics — bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones — sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people’s right to divorce, to use birth control and even to choose abortion. In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees this freedom. And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong.
Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) American politician
“Religious Belief and Public Morality,” John A. O’Brien Lecture, U. of Notre Dame (13 Sep 1984)
(Source)
We have abundant reason to rejoice, that, in this land, the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age, & in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Letter to the New Church (22 Jan 1793)
(Source)
Unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother’s Sword has been sheathed in a Brother’s breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Letter to George William Fairfax (31 May 1775)
(Source)
When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody. All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights; third, everyman has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don’t interfere with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man them rights ain’t worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don’t do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum’s rush and put in one that will take care of their interests.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Essay in American,” Baltimore Evening Sun (1921-11-07)
(Source)
Rewriting the beginning of the Declaration of Independence in the time's parlance.
This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. It would be easy, however, to destroy that good conscience by shouting to them: if you want the happiness of the people, let them speak out and tell what kind of happiness they want and what kind they don’t want! But, in truth, the very ones who make use of such alibis know they are lies; they leave to their intellectuals on duty the chore of believing in them and of proving that religion, patriotism, and justice need for their survival the sacrifice of freedom.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
“Homage to an Exile” (1955)
Published as an essay in Actuelles III, originally a speech (7 Dec 1955) at a banquet in honor of President Eduardo Santos, editor of El Tiempo, driven out of Columbia by a dictatorship". Reprinted in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1960).
I think the most un-American thing you can say is, “You can’t say that.”
Garrison Keillor (b. 1942) American entertainer, author
(Attributed)
All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men’s Understandings.
Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “Sensus Communis” (1711)
That all history shows the necessity, in order to the preservation of liberty, of every subjects having a watchful eye on the conduct of Kings, Ministers, and Parliament, and of every subjects being not only secured, but encouraged in alarming his fellow subjects on occasion of every attempt upon public liberty.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly,” ch. 9 “Of the Liberty of Speech and Writing on Political Subjects” (1774)
(Source)
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That is the true genius of America — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.
There once was a time in history when the limitation of governmental power meant increasing liberty for the people. In the present day the limitation of governmental power, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of governmental power.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, San Francisco (14 Sep 1912)
(Source)
That government only can be pronounced consistent with the design of all government, which allows to the governed the liberty of doing what, consistently with the general good, they may desire to do, and which only forbids their doing the contrary. Liberty does not exclude restraint; it only excludes unreasonable restraint. To determine precisely how far personal liberty is compatible with the general good, and of the propriety of social conduct in all cases, is a matter of great extent, and demands the united wisdom of a whole people. And the consent of the whole people, as far as it can be obtained, is indispensably necessary to every law, by which the whole people are to be bound; else the whole people are enslaved to the one, or the few, who frame the laws for them.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly” (1774)
(Source)
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.
One ship drives east and another drives west,
With the self-same winds that blow,
‘Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That tell them way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate,
As we journey along through life,
‘Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author and poet.
“The Winds of Fate” (1913), Poems of Optimism (1915)
(Source)
Sometimes called "'Tis the Set of the Sail."
There is a longer variant of the poem, sometimes called "One Ship Sails East," that includes two stanzas in front, and has slightly different words in the analogous stanzas. I have not found a primary source for this version:But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.
One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.
Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation. All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address, New York City (12 Sep 1962)
(Source)
So long as governmental power existed exclusively for the king and not at all for the people, then the history of liberty was a history of the limitation of governmental power. But now the governmental power rests in the people, and the kings who enjoy privilege are the kings of the financial and industrial world; and what they clamor for is the limitation of governmental power, and what the people sorely need is the extension of governmental power.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, San Francisco (14 Sep 1912)
(Source)
At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any Western society.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
“Day of Affirmation,” address, University of Capetown, South Africa (6 Jun 1966)
(Source)
MILNE: Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
Night and Day, Act 1 (1978)
The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech, Rochester, New York (5 July 1852)
(Source)
In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) American lawyer, politician, US President (1925-29)
“Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence” (5 Jul 1926)
(Source)
What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty, and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.
Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) American lawyer, activist, Supreme Court Justice (1916-39)
“True Americanism,” speech, Faneuil Hall, Boston (1915-07-05)
(Source)
Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed. If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) American lawyer, politician, US President (1925-29)
“Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence” (5 Jul 1926)
(Source)
We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
“The Sinews of Peace,” speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (5 Mar 1946)
The real test of any claim about freedom, I’ve decided, is how far you’re willing to go in letting people be wrong about it.
Bruce Baugh (b. 1965) American writer, game developer
(Attributed)
The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
The Pursuit of Justice, “Berlin East and West” (1964)
Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, UN General Assembly (25 Sep 1961)
(Source)
When liberty is mentioned, we must observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher
The Philosophy of History Sec. 3, ch. 2 (1821-1831)
(Source)
July 4, 1776 was a day of history in its high and true significance. Not because the underlying principles set out in the Declaration of Independence were new; they are older than the Christian religion, or Greek philosophy, nor was it because history is made by proclamation of declaration; history is made only by action. But it was an historic day because the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The wonder and glory of the American people is not the ringing Declaration of that day, but the action then already begun, and in the process of being carried out, in spite of every obstacle that war could interpose, making the theory of freedom and equality a reality.
G’KAR: No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 2×20 “The Long, Twilight Struggle” (18 Oct 1995)
I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
“A Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston,” speech (9 Dec 1860)
(Source)
But we ask neither for power nor for riches, the usual causes of wars and strife among mortals, but only for freedom, which no true man gives up except with his life.
[At nos non imperium neque divitias petimus, quarum rerum causa bella atque certamina omnia inter mortales sunt, sed libertatem, quam nemo bonus nisi cum anima simul amittit.]
Sallust (c. 86-35 BC) Roman historian and politician [Gaius Sallustius Crispus]
Bellum Catilinae [The War of Catiline; The Conspiracy of Catiline], ch. 33, sent. 5 [tr. Rolfe (1931)]
(Source)
Plea from Catiline's army to the Roman general Quintus Marcius. Original Latin. Alt. trans.:"Our enterprise has no such object in view; we have neither ambition nor avarice, the two grand springs of human actions, the constant cause of all the strife, and all the wars that disturb the world. We demand a reform of the laws; we stand for the rights of man, and equal liberty; that liberty, which no good man will resign but with life itself." [tr. Murphy (1807)]"As for us, we neither desire power nor riches, which are the sources of all the wars and contests among men: liberty is our aim; that liberty which no brave man will lose but with his life." [tr. Rose (1831); ch. 34]"But we neither seek power nor riches, for the sake of which things wars and contests arise among men, but liberty, which no brave man loses but with his life." [Source (1841); ch. 34]"But at power or wealth, for the sake of which wars, and all kinds of strife, arise among mankind, we do not aim; we desire only our liberty, which no honorable man relinquishes but with life." [tr. Watson (1867)]"We, however, ask for neither rule nor riches, though these are the cause of every war and struggle among men; we ask only for that freedom which no brave man ever abandoned while life remained." [tr. Pollard (1882)]
If Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Speech to the Officers at Newburgh (15 Mar 1783)
(Source)
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
“A Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston,” speech (9 Dec 1860)
I believe in an America where the rights that I have described are enjoyed by all, regardless of their race or their creed or their national origin — where every citizen is free to think and speak as he pleases and write and worship as he pleases — and where every citizen is free to vote as he pleases, without instructions from anyone, his employer, the union leader or his clergyman.
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation, — religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute
(Source)
The public use of a man’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
“An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?]” (1784)
(Source)
If the people cannot govern themselves, they must be governed by somebody.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Annajanska (1919)
Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force.
Dean Acheson (1893-1971) American statesman
Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)
Our discontent begins by finding false villains whom we can accuse of deceiving us. Next we find false heroes whom we expect to liberate us. The hardest, most discomfiting discovery is that each of us must emancipate himself.
Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004) American historian, professor, attorney, writer
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, 6.5 (1961)
America wasn’t founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so that we could all be anything we damn well pleased.
P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American humorist, editor
(Attributed)
Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
“Nationality,” Home and Foreign Review (1862-07)
(Source)
It is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 4 “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual” (1859)
(Source)
To preserve the freedom of the human mind, then, and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Green Mumford (18 Jun 1799)
(Source)
Do the people of this land — in the providence of God, favored, as they sometimes boast, above all others in the plenitude of their liberties — desire to preserve those so carefully protected by the First Amendment: liberty of religious worship, freedom of speech and of the press, and the right as freemen peaceably to assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievances? If so, let them withstand all beginnings of encroachment. For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.
George Sutherland (1862-1942) Anglo-American jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1922-1938)
Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 301 U.S. 141 (1938) [Dissent]
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)
(Source)
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him thro’ his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Jean Nicholas Démeunier (22 Jun 1786)
(Source)
This was part of a response to a draft article on the United States ("Essai sur les États-Unis") being put together for the Encyclopédie Méthodique which Démeunier had passed by Jefferson for comment. Jefferson requested changes on a number of items, including a passage on a new Virginia slave law and the failure of some of the delegates to propose an amendment for the gradual emancipation of slaves (Jefferson had not attended the legislative session, being in France). This quotation appeared toward the end of that proposed revision.
In the end, Démeunier provided this French translation in his article:L’homme est un être bien étonnant et bien incompréhensible! pour défendre sa liberté, il souffre la fatigue, la faim, les coups de fouet, la prison et la mort, et le moment d’après les nobles sentimens qui l’ont soutenu dans de cruelles épreuves, ne font plus d’impression sur lui, et il impose à d’autres hommes une servitude qui, dans la durée d’une heure, produit plus de peines et de douleur, que l’assujettissement contre lequel il a pris les armes, n’en eût produit dans des siecles.
Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.
R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
Equality (1931)
Sometimes cited an English proverb, or attributed to Isaiah Berlin.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Declaration of Independence” (1776-07-04)
(Source)
As modified and approved by the Continental Congress. Compare to Jefferson's original draft.
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 (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774-06)
(Source)
Originally written as a draft of resolutions for the Virginia Convention (Aug 1774) as instructions for the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress. Never delivered, as Jefferson was unable to attend the convention, it was given this title by friends who printed up copies without his knowledge.
On the one hand, security and justice require centralized governmental control, which must extend to the creation of a world government if it is to be effective. Progress, on the contrary, requires the utmost scope for personal initiative that is compatible with social order.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Authority and the Individual, Lecture 6 (1949)
(Source)
Collection, with some edits, of the inaugural Reith Lectures, BBC, "Authority and the Individual," No. 6 "Individual and Social Ethics" (1949-01-30).
The Christian religion when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have inveloped it, and brought to the original purity & simplicity of it’s benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, & the freest expansions of the human mind.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Moses Robinson (1801)
(Source)
There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary,” speech, Boston (24 Aug 1953)
(Source)
Dinner address at the American Bar Association Diamond Jubilee dinner. Reprinted in the American Bar Association Journal (Nov 1953) [citation 39 A.B.A. J. 961 (1953)].
The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 37 (1949) [dissenting]
(Source)
Common paraphrase of Jackson's actual comment:This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds, and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. (1862-1948) American statesman, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916, 1930-1941)
Speech, 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Faneuil Hall, Boston (17 Jun 1925)
And I believe, too, in the gospel of Liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. I believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away, the more you will have. In liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just. Let us be generous to each other.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do To Be Saved?” Sec. 11 (1880)
(Source)
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)
May it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all.) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which Monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. The form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Roger Chew Weightman (24 Jun 1826)
(Source)
The last letter he wrote.
[T]imid men […] prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Philip Mazzei (24 Apr 1796)
(Source)
The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris
(Source)
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ch. 15 (1835)
If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters there are great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready with his bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be at peace. The more absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the temptation becomes to those who have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 18 (1859)
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Fetters of Gold are still Fetters; and silken Cords pinch.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #1522 (1732)
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Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.
Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) American lawyer, activist, Supreme Court Justice (1916-39)
Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) [Concur]
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 1 “Introductory” (1859)
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The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people, if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 5 “Applications” (1859)
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When opinions are free, either in matters of government or religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
The Age of Reason, Closing Words (1796)
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644 (1929) [Dissent]
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Freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
“Bread and Freedom” (1957), Resistance, Rebellion, and Death [tr. O’Brien (1961)]
I am unalterably opposed to communism because it exalts the state over the individual and the family, and because of the lack of freedom of speech, of protest, of religion, and of the press, which is the characteristic of totalitarian states. The way of opposition to communism is not to imitate its dictatorship, but to enlarge individual freedom, in our own countries and all over the globe. There are those in every land who would label as Communist every threat to their privilege. But as I have seen on my travels in all sections of the world, reform is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in whatever name, only strengthens the very communism it claims to oppose.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
“Day of Affirmation,” address, University of Capetown, South Africa (6 Jun 1966)
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The first thing I want to teach is disloyalty. … This will beget independence — which is loyalty to one’s best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook [ed. Paine (1935)]
The show in general we feel like is a privilege. Even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks … which is really what we do. We sit in the back and throw spitballs — but never forgetting that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds like it goes without saying. But that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open. The difference between free and … burdened. And we don’t take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
The Daily Show (2001-09-20)
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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.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) English poet, critic, editor
“Invictus” (1875)
And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails,
For want of a rope, to strangle kings.[Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois.]Denis Diderot (1713-1784) French editor, philosopher
Poésies Diverses, “Les Éleuthéromanes” (1875)
Alt. trans. "His hands would plait the priest’s guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings."
Derived from a statement attributed (but not confirmed) to Jean Meslier: "I would like — and this would be the last and most ardent of my wishes — I would like the last of the kings to be strangled by the guts of the last priest."
Variant: "Let us strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest."
[Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre / Serrons le cou du dernier roi.]
This version was attributed to Diderot in Jean-François de La Harpe, Cours de Littérature Ancienne et Moderne (1840)
Sometimes paraphrased as, ""Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," etc.
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Meaning of It All, “The Uncertainty of Values” (1999)
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Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great question of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Samuel Adams (1722-1803) American revolutionary, statesman
Speech, State House, Philadelphia (1776-08-01)
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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to John Quincy Adams (13 Nov 1816)
We must not conclude merely upon a man’s haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
“Novanglus” #3, Boston Gazette (1774)
Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: but a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Abigail Adams (17 Jul 1775)
Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good Terms.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Prerogative, Power and Liberty,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Journal, notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces — and that cure is freedom!
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
“John Milton,” Edinburgh Review (Aug 1825)
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Review of John Milton, A Treatise on Christian Doctrine.
Why should my freedom be governed by somebody else’s conscience?
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
1 Corinthians 10:29 [NJB (1985)]
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Paul on how it's okay to eat food that others think is religiously wrong to eat (but how you shouldn't be a dick about it, either).
Alternate translations:For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
[KJV (1611)]Why should my freedom depend on somebody else’s conscience?
[JB (1966)]“Well, then,” someone asks, “why should my freedom to act be limited by another person's conscience?"
[GNT (1976)]Why should my freedom be judged by someone else’s conscience?
[CEB (2011)]For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]
You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
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The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
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Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Heretics and Heresies” (1874)
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And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“The Spirit of Liberty,” speech, “I Am an American Day,” New York (1941-05-21)
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Yes, Gentlemen; if I am asked why we are free with servitude all around us, why our Habeas Corpus Act has not been suspended, why our press is still subject to no censor, why we still have the liberty of association, why our representative institutions still abide in all their strength, I answer, It is because in the year of revolutions we stood firmly by our government in its peril; and, if I am asked why we stood by our government in its peril, when men all around us were engaged in pulling governments down, I answer, It was because we knew that though our government was not a perfect government, it was a good government, that its faults admitted of peaceable and legal remedies, that it had never inflexibly opposed just demands, that we had obtained concessions of inestimable value, not by beating the drum, not by ringing the tocsin, not by tearing up the pavement, not by running to the gunsmiths’ shops to search for arms, but by the mere force of reason and public opinion.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
Speech on re-election to Parliament, Edinburgh (2 Nov 1852)
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On the various revolutions and counter-revolutions in Europe in 1848.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism:
The right to criticize.
The right to hold unpopular beliefs.
The right to protest.
The right of independent thought.The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood, nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.
Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1965) American politician (US Senator, Maine)
“Declaration of Conscience” (1950-06-01)
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Speech given in the US Senate.
If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own.
If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free.
If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1938-06-30), National Education Association, World’s Fair, New York City
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We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Declaration of Independence,” original draft (1776-06)
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Compare to the final version, as modified and adopted by the Continental Congress.
On the necessary points, unity. On the questionable points, liberty. In everything, love.
[In necessariis unites, in non necessariis libertas, in omnibus caritas.]
Rupertus Meldenius (1582-1651) German writer [pseud. of Peter Meiderlin]
Paraenesis Votiva pro Pace Ecclesiae ad Theologos Augustanae Confessionis [Votive Counsel for the Peace of the Church, to the Theologians of the Augustan Confession] (1626)
Also translated as "essentials" and "non-essentials."
Paraphrase of final lines of the work:Verbo dicam: Si nos servaremus IN necesariis Unitatem, IN non-necessariis Libertatem, IN UTRISQUE Charitatem, optimo certe loco essent res nostrae.
[In a word, were we to observe unity in essentials, liberty in incidentals, and in all things charity, our affairs would be certainly in a most happy situation.]
Commonly attributed to St Augustine, but also to John Wesley, Richard Baxter, and several others.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1791-12-23) to Archibald Stuart
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Jefferson originally wrote "dangers" instead of "inconveniencies."
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Animal Farm, unpublished preface (1945)
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The original essay was written in 1945 as an introduction to the first edition of the book, but was left unpublished It was rediscovered in 1971, and finally published under Orwell's name as "The Freedom of the Press," Times Literary Supplement [of London] (1972-09-15).
More history of this quotation here: If Liberty Means Anything At All It Means the Right To Tell People What They Do Not Want To Hear – Quote Investigator®.
What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
[Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige, die uns lehrt, uns selbst zu regieren.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Spruche in Prosa [Proverbs in Prose], 3.225 (1819)
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.
William Allen White (1868-1944) American writer and journalist
“A Free Press in a Machine Age,” speech, U. of Pennsylvania (2 May 1938)
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“On Slavery and Democracy” (fragment) (1858?)
Liberty then I would say that, in the whole plenitude of it’s extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Isaac H. Tiffany (4 Apr 1819)
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