Liberty Quotes - Page 40

• The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, Freedom, War

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• The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.

  Learned Hand

  Freedom, Spirit

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• The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Sea, Library

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.182, Cambridge University Press

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• Fear clogs; Faith liberates.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Faith, Freedom

  Elbert Hubbard, Bert Hubbard (1923). “Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work”

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• In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Justice, Doe

  Walter Lippmann (1938). “The good society”, p.267, Transaction Publishers

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• What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Nature, Patriotic, Angel

  1788 The Federalist, Jan.

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• Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Freedom, People, May

  97 Copy quote

• The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

  Daniel Webster

  Freedom, Political, Age

  Daniel Webster, Edwin Percy Whipple (2001). “The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster”, p.385, Beard Books

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• The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Men, Rights

  1963 On sending national guardsmen to ensure peaceful integration at the University of Alabama. Address to the nation, 11 Jun.

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• The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry and economy.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Light, Sun, Economy

  "The Wars of America: Or, A General History of All the Important Tragic Events that Have Occurred in the United States of North America, Since the Discovery of the Western Continent by Christopher Columbus". Book by Benjamin Eggleston, p. 156, 1839.

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• There is no "slippery slope" toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders.

  Alan K. Simpson

  Freedom, Loss, Long

  The New York Times, September 26, 1982.

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• The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Freedom, Lying, Government

  Douglas MacArthur (1965). “Duty, Honor, Country: A Pictorial Autobiography”

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• No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.

  Wendell Phillips

  Freedom, Jealous, People

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• Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.

  Richard Lamm

  Funny, Christmas, Xmas

  87 Copy quote
• 

  It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

  Thomas Sowell

  Business, Stupid, Government

  "Wake Up, Parents!". Column at Jewish World Review, www.jewishworldreview.com. August 18, 2000.

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• If 50 million people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing.

  David Severn

  Stupid, People, Libertarian

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• Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

  Samuel Adams

  Long, Extinction, Moral

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

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• Individual liberty is individual power.

  John Quincy Adams

  Individual Power, Presidency, Individual

  John Quincy Adams (1965). “John Quincy Adams and American continental empire: letters, papers and speeches”, Chicago, Quadrangle Books

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• A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Freedom, Missing, May

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• The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire.

  William Henry Chamberlin

  Population, Byzantine, Libertarian

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• Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit.

  Khalil Gibran

  Attitude, Freedom, 4th Of July

  "The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul". Book by Kahlil Gibran, translated by Juan R. I. Cole. Chapter "The Vision", 1994.

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• The state is essentially an apparatus of compulsion and coercion. The characteristic feature of its activities is to compel people through the application or the threat of force to behave otherwise than they would like to behave.

  Ludwig von Mises

  People, Libertarian, Coercion

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• It must be obvious that liberty necessarily means freedom to choose foolishly as well as wisely; freedom to choose evil as well as good; freedom to enjoy the rewards of good judgment, and freedom to suffer the penalties of bad judgment. If this is not true, the word "freedom" has no meaning.

  Ben Moreell

  Mean, Evil, Suffering

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• We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

  Winston Churchill

  Freedom, Humor, Men

  Winston S. Churchill “Young Statesman”

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• There is nothing new in state interventionism. It is as old and reactionary as societal organization itself. Always, when it permeates the body politic, it kills the nation.

  Spruille Braden

  Organization, Body, Libertarian

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