Liberty Quotes - Page 23

• Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.

  Lord Acton

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Religious

  "Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices". Book by Thomas Stephen Szasz, 2004.

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• Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!

  Samuel Adams

  Men, Trouble, Shame

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

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• If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

  Samuel Adams

  Giving Up, Mistake, Men

  John White, Cecil Calvert Baltimore (2d Baron), Charles Hudson, Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson, Massachusetts Historical Society (1904). “The planting of colonies in New England”

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• It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Evil

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Cosimo, Inc.

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• When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Citizens

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).

  Frederic Bastiat

  Order, Justice, Principles

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

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• By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Wealth, Prosperity

  "Harmonies economiques". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

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• Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.

  John Dickinson

  Kings, Taken, Rights

  John Dickinson (2009). “The Writings of John Dickinson”, p.262, Applewood Books

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• The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Important, Libertarian, Economics

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• What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Society, Would Be, Able

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich August von Hayek, 1960.

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• The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Grace, Superstitions

  Letter to Roger C.Weightman, 24 June 1826.

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• The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.268

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• None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Together, Civil Rights, Chance

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• The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Believe, Fall, Government

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• And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Useless, Opinion

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• Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Humor, Government, People

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• There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Community, May

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

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• Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?

  George Washington

  Virtue, Providence, Felicity

  George Washington, John Jay, Jared Sparks (1850). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America”, p.38, New York : J. Wiley

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• [T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

  George Washington

  Unions, Virtue, Civic Duty

  George Washington (1871). “Words of Washington”, p.141

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• Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

  George Washington

  Religious, Business, Men

  "George Washington’s Farewell Address". "The Life of George Washington. Special Edition for Schools", ed. Robert Faulkner and Paul Carrese, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, oll.libertyfund.org. 2000.

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• We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Government, Watches, Libertarian

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• The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Libertarian Party, Defense

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• I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Europe, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.375

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• Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

  Thomas Paine

  Happiness, America, Libertarian

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.15

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• War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results.

  Joseph Sobran

  Hate, War, Optimism

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