Liberty Quotes - Page 13

• Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee.

  F. Lee Bailey

  Government, Usa, Rights

  "Newsweek" Magazine, April 17, 1967.

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• Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Carpe Diem, Law

  Speech at the Guildhall, Bristol, England, 6 Sept. 1780

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• The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.

  William O. Douglas

  Religious, War, Political

  William O. Douglas (1954). “An Almanac of Liberty”

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• The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

  Frederick Douglass

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Speech on the twenty-third anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1885

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• Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, Freedom, Rights

  Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1960). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954”, p.219, Best Books on

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• Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Memories, Freedom, Political

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• The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Faith, Freedom, Acceptance

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

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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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• It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Men, May

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 21 Apr. 1803

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• Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

  James Madison

  Men, Political, Safe

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.478

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• Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

  James Madison

  Patriotic, Power, Presidential

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• Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

  James Madison

  Government, Atheism, Separation Of Church And State

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.276

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• Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Libertarian, Modern, Form

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

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• Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy.

  Ron Paul

  Country, Historical, Democracy

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• Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.

  Samuel Adams

  Perseverance, Rights, Suffering

  Essay in The Boston Gazette under the pseudonym "Candidus", October 14, 1771.

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• 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

  William Cowper

  Weed, Wisdom, Flower

  William Cowper (1856). “The task, Table talk, and other poems: With critical observations of various authors on his genius and character, and notes, critical and illustrative”, p.271

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• He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Winning, Deserve

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• Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Healthy, Individuality

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• [Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Rights, People

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• Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason.

  Erich Fromm

  Freedom, Men, Reason

  "Psychoanalysis and Religion".

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• Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Men, Confusion, Political

  "Southey's Colloquies on Society" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1830.

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• Government is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government.

  Walter E. Williams

  Rights, Government, Giving

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• [V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

  George Washington

  Spring, Government, Morality

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.308

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• You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Political, Libertarian, Honest

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• A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Firsts, Littles

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