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The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. — Thomas Jefferson When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. — George Mason ...when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. — Thomas Paine My language has always been that of liberty and humanity, and I know by experience that nothing so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all circumstances. — Thomas Paine ...Although the political liberty of this country is greater than that of nearly every other civilized nation, its personal liberty is said to be less. In other words, men are thought to be more under the control of extra-legal authorities, and to defer more to those around them, in pursuing even their lawful and innocent occupations, than in almost every other country. — James Fenimore Cooper Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner. — James Fenimore Cooper Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle of liberty is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds. — Dante Alighieri ...a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free. - Benjamin Franklin Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. — Woodrow Wilson They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin If none were to have Liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in the world.— Lord Halifax All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. — F.A. Hayek Equality of the general rules of law and conduct, however, is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty. Not only has liberty nothing to do with any other sort of equality, but it is even bound to produce inequality in many respects. This is the necessary result and part of the justification of individual liberty: if the result of individual liberty did not demonstrate that some manners of living are more successful than others, much of the case for it would vanish. — F.A. Hayek Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men. - F.A. Hayek Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong. — F.A. Hayek ...the argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better. — F.A. Hayek It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once. — David Hume 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 In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot... — Thomas Jefferson The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. — Thomas Jefferson | If we are made in some degree for others, yet, in a greater, we are made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling, and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not the liberty which the [Virginia] bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion, that the State has the perpetual right to the services of all its members. This, to men of certain ways of thinking, would be to annihilate the blessings of existence, and to contradict the Giver of life, who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness. — Thomas Jefferson Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within 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 In a government bottomed on the will of all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all. — Thomas Jefferson I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. — Thomas Jefferson Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free. — Thomas Jefferson What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? — Thomas Jefferson Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it. — Walter Lippmann The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on another day against the intrigues of politicians, on another against the dead hand of bureaucrats, on another against the patrioter and the militarist, on another against the profiteer, and then against the hysteria and the passions of the mobs, against obscurantism and stupidity, against the criminal and against the overrighteous. In this campaign every civilized man is enlisted till he dies, and he only has known the full joy of living who somewhere and at some time has struck a decisive blow for the freedom of the human spirit. — Walter Lippmann The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power. — Douglass MacArthur The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and their constables. The political concept of the individual's freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of the police power. — Ludwig von Mises The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. — Ludwig von Mises In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary. — Kathleen Norris We have a solution for war. It is to expand the sphere of liberty. — Rudolph Rummel Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. — Sallust Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw ...tradition and custom becomes intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty. — William Graham Sumner If we truly cared about our children and future generations, instead of demagoging about them, we'd worry more about saving liberty than saving Social Security. — Walter Williams Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. — James Wilson |