Liberty And Justice Quotes

• Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Justice, Liberty

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.503, Penguin

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Government, Law

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Politics

  Martin D. Tullai, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln”

  81 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

  Samuel Adams

  Rights, Liberty, Together

  Samuel Adams (1946). “Samuel Adams: selections from his writings”

  218 Copy quote

  Show source

• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Change, Men, Law

  113 Copy quote

• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, War, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

  104 Copy quote

  Show source

• What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate, you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

  Winston Churchill

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Winston Churchill (1986). “The Gathering Storm”, p.312, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  695 Copy quote

  Show source

• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

  190 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Positive, Inspiring

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.158, Pan Macmillan

  309 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  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

  227 Copy quote

  Show source

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) See Edmund Burke 28; Mill 18

  24 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

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

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Witty

  354 Copy quote

• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.270

  180 Copy quote

  Show source

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

  174 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, History

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Adversity, Angel, Men

  The Federalist no. 51 (1788)

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

  James Madison

  Patriotic, Men, Law

  The Federalist no. 62 (1788).

  78 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Democracy, Apathy

  50 Copy quote

• An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Motivational, Respect, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  139 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Law, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

  James Madison

  Men, Rights, Liberty

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  46 Copy quote

  Show source