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Liberty Quotes

Browse 6578 quotes about Liberty.

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Liberty Quotes

“The function of our Government is to insure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their fight to life on this continent.”

IfsChildrenGovernmentFightingLibertySupportRightsGenerationsLandCitizensStandardsResourcesCapacityFunctionOur ChildrenPopulationPursuitContinentsPursuit Of HappinessHereafterLivelihoodDegradeStandards Of LivingThis GenerationLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessRights To Life
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to affect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”

PeopleThinkingMayMadeWarMomentsSpiritForgetLibertySupportRightsForgottenDuesConclusionMaking MoneyFacultySoleRulersResortsCarelessReviveShacklesUnitingDisregarded
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The last line of defense in support of freedom and the Constitution consists of the people themselves. If the people want to be free, if they want to lift themselves out from underneath a state apparatus that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on needless wars, destroys the value of the dollar, and spews forth endless propaganda about how indispensable it is and how lost we would all be without it, there is no force that can stop them.”

PeopleIfsWantWarStatesLastsValuesLostForceLinesLibertySupportResourcesConstitutionDollarsDefenseEndlessLiftsPropagandaIndispensable
Author:Ron Paul
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“What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.”

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Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Political democracy cannot flourish under all economic conditions. Democracy requires an economic system which supports the political ideals of liberty and equality for all. Men cannot exercise freedom in the political sphere when they are deprived of it in the economic sphere.”

MenPoliticalPoliticsLibertySupportEconomyDemocracyEconomicConditionsExerciseIdealsLiberalismSpheresDeprivedEconomic SystemsEquality For AllLiberty And Equality
Book:The Capitalist Manifesto
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“Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on nonadherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.”

UseGovernmentSchoolFormReligiousPrayerViewsLibertySupportTakenGroupsAtheismBirthTaxesIncludingPositive AtheismFinanceOrganizedAbortionIntroducingRevenuePublic SchoolCivil LibertiesBirth ControlOutlawZealousReligious Views
Author:Norman Dorsen
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“The theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at least men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honest. There is little support for that theory in known facts.”

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Author:H. L. Mencken
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“We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?”

KnowsDoeDeathEvilCommonGriefLibertyEnemyPovertySupportStormSecureSoleRemedyPrincipalSovereignHarborsTempest
Book:Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: In Three Books with Marginal Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator,
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“Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.”

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Book:The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections
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“To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.”

MenSelfStatesHandsGovernmentLawUsedOrderIndividualLibertySupportArmsCitizensConstitutionTownsFundamentalsLaysDefenseEnjoyedAmendmentsCountyDiscretionSelf DefenseSecond AmendmentRight To Bear ArmsMilitiaBearing ArmsDissolutionFounding Fathers Gun2 AmendmentFounding Fathers Second AmendmentDemolishAmendment 1
Author:John Adams
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“We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be significant, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power and coercion.”

IfsWorldMayPersonsGovernmentLawOrderFoundPerfectLibertyOpinionSupportRightsFailingExampleMoralityConscienceArgumentStrongerPropertyBoundsDisasterSignificantVotingConvinceCoercionSecuredPerfect Man
Book:A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820: In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England
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“We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty... All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin... And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

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Author:John F. Kennedy
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“Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race. . . Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports - one planet indivisible, with clean air,... soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all.”

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Author:William Sloane Coffin
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“If every person has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force - for the same reason - cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.”

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Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“This [anti-terrorism bill] is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fourth Amendment protection of private property... Some of these provisions place more power in the hands of law enforcement than our Founding Fathers could have dreamt and severely compromises the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. This bill, while crafted with good intentions, is rife with constitutional infringements I could not support.”

FirstsHandsLawFatherLibertySupportSpeechBillsPropertyIntentionTerrorismProtectionCompromiseAmendmentsFourthFree SpeechLaw EnforcementEnforcementFoundingViolationProvisionFirst AmendmentAbidingGood IntentionsPrivate PropertyCivil LibertiesOur Founding FathersInfringementFourth AmendmentAnti Terrorism
Author:Butch Otter
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“President Obama continues to support war. He continues to remove many basic civil liberties and human rights. He continues to condone drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan that kill women and children. He meets with his advisers every Tuesday morning and signs extrajudicial killings. To me, those are not the actions of a peace person.”

HumansChildrenPersonsWarActionPresidentLibertyMorningSupportRightsKillingHuman RightsRemoveAfghanistanPresident ObamaPakistanCivil LibertiesTuesdayDronesAdviserTuesday Morning
Author:Mairead Corrigan
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“Building on the public's unwillingness to act on principle in support of market solutions to apparent problems, whether real or imagined, these interest groups secure arbitrary restrictions on voluntary exchanges and, in the process, secure rents for their members while reducing both the liberties and economic well being of other members of the economic nexus, both domestically and internationally.”

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Author:James M. Buchanan
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“I think that's why Donald Trump continues to enjoy evangelical support. They're not endorsing necessarily his lifestyle. What they're saying is this is a binary choice between one candidate, Donald Trump - who is pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-conservative justices of the Supreme Court - and another candidate, Hillary Clinton, who has an opposite view on all of those issues.”

ThinkingChoicesEnjoyReligiousJusticeViewsLibertySupportIssuesTrumpOppositesCourtClintonConservativeLifestyleSupremeCandidatesSupreme CourtEvangelicalPro LifeReligious LibertyBinaryEndorsing
Author:Robert Jeffress
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“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

KnowsInspirationalWellsNationsWishFreedomPayLibertySupportBearsSurvivalIllBurdenPatriotismNationalismPatrioticHardshipFoe4th Of JulyMemorialJulyMemorial DayPriceInspirational MilitaryAmerican PatrioticInauguralGreat PatrioticInaugural AddressAmerican PatriotismMemorial Day PoemsHonoring Our VeteransJuly 4th 1776Patriotism In AmericaUsa PatrioticGood PatrioticMemorial Day RemembranceHappy Independence Day Usa4th Of July InspirationalHonoring Veterans Memorial DayChristian PatrioticHappy Memorial DayInspirational PatrioticHonoring Memorial DayFourth Of July InspirationalMemorial Day HeroesServicemenInaugural Speech4th Of July WishesUsa PatriotismUs Independence DayHappy 4th Of JulyMemorial Day MessagesMilitary MemorialFunny 4th Of JulyHonor The FallenPatriotism And FreedomVeteran MemorialMemorial WeekendHeroes DayMemorial Day Thank YouMemorial Day WeekendInspiring PatrioticRemember Memorial DayHardships And SuccessPatriotic VeteranFallen Hero
Author:John F. Kennedy
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