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Liberty Quotes

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Liberty Quotes

“To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused.”

May Made Use Liberty Capable Ill Libertarian Arguing Libertarianism Breach

Author:George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton

“What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.”

“The English are probably more capable than most peoples of making revolutionary change without bloodshed. In England, if anywhere,it would be possible to abolish poverty without destroying liberty.”

Ifs Would Be Liberty Poverty Capable England Revolutionary Destroying Abolish Bloodshed Revolutionary Change

Book:The English People: With 8 Plates in Colour and 17 Illus. in Black and White

Source: The English People: With 8 Plates in Colour and 17 Illus. in Black and White

“Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.”

Source: The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections

“Where there is no law there is no freedom.”

Law Freedom Liberty Capable Abolish

Book:Two treatises of government

Source: Two treatises of government

“The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.”

Humans Law Individual Natural Wealth Powerful Effort Liberty Conditions Capable Prosperity Libertarian Operations Folly Libertarianism Assistance Individual Liberty Carrying On Obstruction

Author:Adam Smith

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" . . . If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?”

Source: Novanglus and Massachusettensis; or, political essays, published in ... 1774 and 1775, on the principal points of controversy, between Great Britain and her colonies; the former by John Adams ... the latter by Jonathan Sewall [or rather, Daniel Leonard] ... To which are added a number of letters lately written by President Adams to the Hon. William Tudor, etc

“The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty- Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.”

Happiness Pleasure Liberty Capable Foundation True Happiness

Author:John Locke

“Photography has arrived at the point where it is capable of liberating painting from all literature, from the anecdote, and even from the subject. In any case, a certain aspect of the subject now belongs to the domain of photography. So shouldn't painters profit from their newly acquired liberty, and make use of it to do other things?”

Use Certain Literature Liberty Cases Subjects Painting Photography Capable Aspect Profit Painter Domain Liberating Anecdotes

Author:Pablo Picasso