Liberty And Equality Quotes

• Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

  Frances Wright

  Inspirational, Equality, Community

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.25

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  Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Patriotic, Equality, Differences

  "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail". Oeuvres complètes, Volume IX, p. 546, 1866.

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• Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.

  Malcolm X

  Motivational, Freedom, Patriotic

  "Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements". Book edited by George Breitman, p. 111, 1965.

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• In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Wisdom

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• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Government, Political

  Letter to Archibald Stewart, 23 Dec. 1791

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• Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Change, Freedom, Father

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863

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• 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 rights of the individual.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Law, Tyrants

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.224, Cambridge University Press

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• Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Libertarian Party, Historical

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.23, Heron Dance Press

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• If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

  Aristotle

  Freedom, Equality, Democracies Have

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.131, Aristotle

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• 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

  Father, Equality, Differences

  Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination, delivered 16 July 1964, San Francisco

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• Naturally the common people don't want war. . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. . .

  Hermann Goring

  Country, War, Simple

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  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Witty

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  In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

  Mark Twain

  Change, Thank You, Memorial Day

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.351, Courier Corporation

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• All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

  John Locke

  Peace, War, Independent

  John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.191

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• The Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

  John Marshall Harlan

  Class, Equality Under The Law, Liberty

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• Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Kings, Kids

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• By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Nature, Powerful, Thoughtful

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1960). “St. Thomas Aquinas: Philosophical Texts”

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  Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Freedom

  Speech by minister Koenders at the presentation of the 2015 Human Rights Tulip, November 12, 2015.

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• None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wisdom, Powerful, Freedom

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.3

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• The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Freedom

  Quoted in Gustave M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947).

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  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Kings, Children

  Speech at Civil Rights March,Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1963

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• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Freedom, Giving Up

  Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784

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• On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

  H. Allen Smith

  Monday, Morning, 4th Of July

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Inspiring, Women, 4th Of July

  Declaration of Sentiments, First Woman's Rights

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  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Strength, Wisdom, Veterans Day

  Letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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