Liberty Quotes - Page 4

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.

Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.

If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days.

To change masters is not to be free.

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.

The liberty, prosperity, and the happiness of our country will always be the object of my most fervent prayers to the Supreme Author of All Good.

Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear.

It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue

Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

All socialism involves slavery.