Liberty Quotes

• Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

  Ronald Reagan

  Veterans Day, Freedom, Our Veterans

  Labor Day Address at Liberty State Park, delivered 1 September 1980, Jersey City, New Jersey

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• If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Freedom, Patriotic, Libertarian Party

  "Strictly Personal" by W. Somerset Maugham, (ch. 31), 1941.

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• 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).

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• A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

  James Madison

  Military, Long, Safe

  James Madison (1787). “The Writings of James Madison: 1787. The journal of the Constitutional convention”, p.317

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• The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Love, God, Men

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.49

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• Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant.

  Clint Eastwood

  Country, Power, Guy

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• There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Hands, Two, Mind Your Own Business

  "The Liberty Manifesto". P. J. O'Rourke's Speech for the opening of the Cato Institute's headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 6, 1993.

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• Taking somebody's money without permission is stealing, unless you work for the IRS; then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania, unless you work for the Army; then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy, unless you work for the FBI; then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp and poisoning people makes you a murderer, unless you work for the CIA; then it's counter-intelligence.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Running, Army, People

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• The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

  James Madison

  Education, Freedom, Inspirational Life

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.41, University of Virginia Press

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• War is the Health of the State.

  Randolph Bourne

  War, Libertarian, States

  Randolph Silliman Bourne (1992). “The Radical Will: Selected Writings, 1911-1918”, p.382, Univ of California Press

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• The individual is the true reality of life. A cosmos in himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called "society," or the "nation," which is only a collection of individuals.

  Emma Goldman

  Reality, Doe, Cosmos

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

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• Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Unemployment, Libertarian

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• When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Truth, Knowledge

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.216

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• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Enlightenment

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Believe, Power

  Speech at Virginia Convention, 5 June 1788

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• Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

  Lord Acton

  Wisdom, Freedom, Mean

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.19, VM eBooks

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  The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

  Patrick Henry

  Fake People, Freedom, 4th Of July

  "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3". Book by Jonathan Elliot, 1836.

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• 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

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• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Freedom, War

  Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816

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  He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Politics, Conservative, Trade

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  If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

  James Madison

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  "The Last Enemy" by Rebecca Sato, www.pbs.org. November 11, 2010.

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• 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).

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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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• As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Freedom, Humor

  "Definition of Democracy," ca. 1 Aug. 1858

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• There's never been a good government.

  Emma Goldman

  Government, Libertarian, Libertarianism

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