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Liberty Quotes

Browse 6578 quotes about Liberty.

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Liberty Quotes

“Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world. Compulsion is applied from above as self-discipline relaxes below, and the last liberties expire under the weight of a unitary state.... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary that divided good from evil is overthrown; kings and nations are guided by chance and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bound of license.”

MenWorldFirstsSoulSelfStatesGovernmentLastsEvilLostNationsNaturalChanceAbilityPleasureLibertyMoralHonestThis WorldKingsDisciplineLimitsWeightBoundsCorruptionBoundariesGenuineRelaxEmpiresGoodsDividedDecayCommerceSelf DisciplineLicenseCompulsionDespotismProminentHamperMoral DecayHonest Government
Author:Russell Kirk
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“Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.”

PeopleMenFirstsTwoWholeGovernmentFormLawIndividualJusticeLibertyHonorLimitsTaxesMajorityDetermineIndividualismTaxationDecencyDespotismBoonDecorum
Book:Alexander Hamilton: Lapham's Quarterly - Special Issue
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“The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.”

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Author:William C. Bryant
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“Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.”

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Author:William Godwin
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“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.”

ThinkingYearsMayReasonCharacterGovernmentFormSpeakActingLibertyStepsTakenToo MuchWiseHorrorEqualCapableConsequenceIdealsBasesTriumphIncapableAstonishingRespectableGoverningDespotismForms Of GovernmentIrrevocableAvertSingle Step
Author:George Washington
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“Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.”

ReligionLibertyFireConscienceOppositesAssumingSellingPopeIndulgenceDespotismCounterfeitTolerationWithholdingFagots
Book:Complete Works
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“The 'survival of the fittest' is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor.”

StatesHelpingLibertyStepsSurvivalLaborVictimCompetitionNotionInevitableCapitalistMistakenPowerlessHostileDespotismSurvival Of The FittestUnsafeFleece
Book:The Collected Works of Ezra H. Heywood
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“In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.”

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Book:1779-1781
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“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

InspirationalPoliticalPoliticsLeadershipWorkLibertyLordPowerRightsPoliticianMoralityAuthorityAbsolutesCorruptionLibertarianLiberalismTyrantsFree MarketConservatismCarpe DiemFreedom And LibertyDespotismFreedom LibertyProperty RightsGreat PowerLimited GovernmentPresumptionAbuse Of PowerFree GovernmentLimiting GovernmentAbsolute PowerPower CorruptsLimited FreedomEternal VigilanceAbsolutismGovernment And SocietyToo Much PowerCorrupt GovernmentGovernment TyrannyPower GovernmentCorrupt PowerPower And CorruptionPower CorruptionAbsolute Power Corrupts AbsolutelyAuthority And Power
Author:Lord Acton
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