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Freedom Quotes

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Freedom Quotes

“The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.”

War Government Freedom Liberty Constant Libertarian Vigilance Libertarian Party Price Of Freedom

Author:Eleanor Roosevelt

“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

“You will never meet anyone who admires the American founders more than I do, but they were human, they made mistakes. Perhaps their worst was that their Bill of Rights stops at the border. Inside the US, the federal government has been limited. Beyond the borders, the government has been able to do anything it wanted.”

Humans Has Beens Made Government Able Wanted Freedom Mistake Rights Worst Bills Admire Borders Founders Federal Government Made A Mistake Bill Of Rights

Author:Richard J. Maybury

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

“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.”

Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont

“We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”

Real Government Found Freedom Liberty Democracy Republican Extremes Moderates Despotism Republican Government

Book:Jeffersonian principles and Hamiltonian principles: extracts from the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton

Source: Jeffersonian principles and Hamiltonian principles: extracts from the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton

“Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.”

Firsts Real Government Felt Freedom Consciousness Possibility Exercise Activity Longing Various Absence Dominion

Author:Wilhelm von Humboldt

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”

“Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.”

People Writing Mean Government Speak Freedom Views Liberty Speech Censorship Freedom Of Speech

Author:Hugo Black

“We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

Whole God Government Truth Political Nations Religious Freedom Moral Principles Knowledge Ten Bible Capacity Constitution Commandments Us History Ten Commandments Moral Principles

Author:James Madison

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Source: Churchill By Himself

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Source: The Churchill Wit

“Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

“If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?”

People Ifs Men Way Use Government Freedom Liberty Slave Surrender Despotism Despots

Book:Spencer: Political Writings

Source: Spencer: Political Writings

“As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.”

Thinking Government Freedom Levels Liberty Watches Limits Empathy Prosperity Favors Fats Lazy Apathy Indifferent Largesse

Author:Lyn Nofziger

“I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.”

Should Feelings Government Freedom Chance Liberty Equal Spring Should Have Independence Surrender Spots Sentiments Declaration Declaration Of Independence

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite, who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?”

People Should Made Government Freedom Liberty Land Birth Should Have Soil Britain Owners Prerequisites

Author:David Lloyd George

“It must never be forgotten...that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.”

People Government Political Freedom Liberty Power Safe Limits Forgotten Limitation Never Forget Gracious

Author:Richard Henry Lee

“No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue.”

“Americans need not fear the federal government because they enjoy the advantage of being armed, which you possess over the people of almost every other nation.”

People Needs Government Nations Enjoy Freedom Gun Advantage Gun Control Federal Government

Author:James Madison

“Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.”

Whole Government Freedom Liberty Psychology Please Promise Conscience Slave Contrary Favors Practicals Command Combination Fraud Grounded

Author:H. L. Mencken

“In our desire to have government become our benefactor and sustainer, we have allowed it to become our taskmaster and overlord. As a result, we have become little more than well-fed, well-entertained slaves to the state. Freedom, as envisioned by our forefathers, is gone.”

Wells Littles States Government Desire Freedom Results Liberty Gone Slave Libertarian Feds Libertarianism Forefathers Benefactors

Author:Chuck Baldwin

“Liberty is its own reward.”

Government Freedom Liberty Rewards

Book:The papers of Woodrow Wilson

Source: The papers of Woodrow Wilson

“If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, there is no good reply you can give to people who say, More important than the body is the mind and the soul, and man hurts himself much more by reading bad books, by listening to bad music and looking at bad movies. Therefore it is the duty of the government to prevent people from committing those faults. And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities velieved that it was their duty.”

Source: Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

“Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.”

World Want Mean Government Used Choices Evil Next Freedom Liberty Divine Mouths Understood Sacred Confusion Appropriate Rulers Adoration

Author:Oliver Ellsworth

“In civilized communities, property as well as personal rights is an essential object of the laws, which encourage industry by securing the enjoyment of its fruits; that industry from which property results, and that enjoyment which consists not merely in its immediate use, but in its posthumous destination to objects of choice, and of kindred affection. In a just and free government, therefore, the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded.”

“If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which enoble the character of a nation, and fulfill the ends of Government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which can not but have the most favorable influence on the rights of Mankind.”

Source: The debates in the several state conventions on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, as recommended by the general convention at Philadelphia in 1787: Together with the Journal of the Federal convention, Luther Martin's letter, Yates's minutes, Congressional opinions, Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of '98-'99, and other illustrations of the Constitution

“I do not want to see any of the people cringing supplicants for the favor of the Government, when they should all be independent masters of their own destiny.”

People Want Should Government Freedom Liberty Destiny Masters Independent Favors

Author:Calvin Coolidge

“Our submission to general principles is necessary because we cannot be guided in our practical action by full knowledge and evaluation of the consequences. So long as men are not omniscient, the only way in which freedom can be given to the individual is by such general rules to delimit the sphere in which the decision is his. There can be no freedom if the government is not limited to particular kinds of action but can use its powers in any ways which serve particular ends.”

Ifs Men Way Kind Long Ends Use Government Action Individual Given Freedom Decision Principles Particular Consequence Practicals Spheres Submission Evaluation Omniscient

Author:Friedrich August von Hayek

“I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”

Source: The Life of General Washington: First President of the United States

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”

Firsts Doe Government Freedom Speech Obligation Amendments Tolerate First Amendment Inconvenience Inconvenient

Author:Anthony Kennedy

“...[W]e insist on the principle that no danger or crisis, foreign or domestic, will be solved by Americans surrendering more of their constitutional liberties, in the foolish hope that a bigger government will provide greater security.”

Government Freedom Liberty Principles Greater Security Danger Bigger Crisis Foolish

Author:Larry P. Arnn

“If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.”

“Over the years, many Americans have made sacrifices in order to promote freedom and human rights around the globe: the heroic actions of our veterans, the lifesaving work of our scientists and physicians, and generosity of countless individuals who voluntarily give of their time, talents, and energy to help others-all have enriched humankind and affirmed the importance of our Judeo-Christian heritage in shaping our government and values.”