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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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The things that are wrong with the country today are the sum total of all the things that are wrong with us as individuals.
-- Charles W. Tobey		 
Man’s drive for self-expression, which over the centuries has built his monuments, does not stay within its bounds; the creations which yesterday were detested and the obscene become the classics of today.
-- Matthew Tobriner		 
The Rothschild family is the head of the organization in which I entered in Colorado. All the Occult Brotherhoods are part of it. It is a Lucifer Organization to install his reign in the whole world. … Supposedly the Rothschilds have personal dealings with the Devil. I have personally been in his villa and have experienced it. And I know it is true.
-- John Todd		 
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
-- Alvin Toffler		 
One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.
-- Alvin Toffler		 
You may not be interested in war, but war is very interested in you.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
The misapprehension springs from the fact that the learned jurists, deceiving themselves as well as others, depict in their books an ideal of government -- not as it really is, an assembly of men who oppress their fellow-citizens, but in accordance with the scientific postulate, as a body of men who act as the representatives of the rest of the nation. They have gone on repeating this to others so long that they have ended by believing it themselves, and they really seem to think that justice is one of the duties of governments. History, however, shows us that governments, as seen from the reign of Caesar to those of the two Napoleons and Prince Bismarck, are in their very essence a violation of justice; a man or a body of men having at command an army of trained soldiers, deluded creatures who are ready for any violence, and through whose agency they govern the State, will have no keen sense of the obligation of justice. Therefore governments will never consent to diminish the number of those well-trained and submissive servants, who constitute their power and influence.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal -- that there is no human relation between master and slave.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
I know that most men -- not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems -- can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty -- conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
Hypocrisy is anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
The more that is given, the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work, the more their poverty will increase.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi		 
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
-- Lily Tomlin		 
It is said, mostly by Libertarians, that ‘taxation is theft.’ Theft is too mild a word. Typically, a thief strikes only once, and doesn’t pretend that his robbery is legitimate. Taxation is actually slavery.
-- Rick Tompkins		 
[T]hroughout history the unarmed have been safe only as long as the armed (criminals or government agents) have allowed them to be safe. We should beware of any politician, bureaucrat, or intellectual who claims the Second Amendment is outdated, or that it does no more than guarantee the National guard’s right to bear arms. Many of these same people did their best to obstruct investigations of government wrongdoing at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
-- William R. Tonso		 
The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
We differ from Tory Socialism in so far as we are in favour, not of paternal, but of fraternal government, and we differ from Continental Socialism because we accept the principle of private property, and repudiate confiscation and violence. With Mazzini, we say the worst feature in Continental Socialism is its materialism. It is this indeed which utterly separates English Radical Socialists from Continental Socialists — our abhorrence and detestation of their materialistic ideal.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
The Radical creed, as I understand it, is this: We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, justice, and Self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be helped by the State representing directly the whole people. In giving this State help, we make three conditions: first, the matter must be one of primary social importance; next, it must be proved to be practicable; thirdly, the State interference must not diminish self-reliance. Even if the chance should arise of removing a great social evil, nothing must be done to weaken those habits of individual self-reliance and voluntary association which have built up the greatness of the English people.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, we join a burning belief in duty, and a deep spiritual ideal of life. And we have more than an abstract belief in duty, we do not hesitate to unite the advocacy of social reform with an appeal to the various classes who compose society to perform those duties without which all social reform must be merely delusive.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee		 
Mr. Speaker, we are now in Chapter 11... Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any bankrupt entity in world history.
-- James A. Traficant, Jr.		 
Mr. Speaker, in 1848, Karl Marx said, a progressive income tax is needed to transfer wealth and power to the state. Thus, Marx's Communist Manifesto had as its major economic tenet a progressive income tax. Think about it, 1848 Karl Marx, Communism.... I say it is time to replace the progressive income tax with a national retail sales tax, and it is time to abolish the IRS, my colleagues. I yield back all the rules, regulations, fear, and intimidation of our current system.
-- James A. Traficant, Jr.		 
America is in trouble... not from without, but from within! The Central Government has become too powerful. Citizens fear the Government. This is wrong. This is dangerous! I know the Government covered-up and promulgated LIES about Waco, Ruby Ridge, Pan Am Flight 103, Hoffa, and J.F.K. The Government knew I was right when I called Janet Reno a traitor. Janet Reno sold us out when she refused to investigate a $10-million payoff to the Democratic Party from a general in the Red Chinese Army (no less!). Think about it! And the Government knew that I had known why Reno was forced to betray America! I’m proud that I tried to do something about it! Someday the truth will come out. (I hope China never attacks us!)
-- James A. Traficant, Jr.		 
A memory is the life past, no one can take from you, forever it lasts.
-- Verka Paunovska Trajcesica		 
Those prepared to give their lives in freedom’s cause, come over to me...
-- Col. William Barrett Travis		 
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
-- Treason Clause		 
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
-- Treaty of Tripoli, 1796		 
It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it.
-- John Trenchard		 
Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the blood of real civilization.
-- G. M. Trevelyan		 
It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way.
-- Laurence Tribe		 
[The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government.
-- Laurence Tribe		 
[I]f we won’t choose to pay the price of liberty, then by default we shall suffer the cost of servitude -- whether it be the iron chains of a tyrannical oligarchy or the regulatory chains of unelected, faceless bureaucrats. When we witness our neighbors abused by tyrants, will we skulk away and hope we’re not next? Or will we stand by them and challenge -- as freedom-loving Americans -- the tyranny of lawless leaders.
-- Phil Trieb		 
[I]f we won’t choose to pay the price of liberty, then by default we shall suffer the cost of servitude -- whether it be the iron chains of a tyrannical oligarchy or the regulatory chains of unelected, faceless bureaucrats. When we witness our neighbors abused by tyrants, will we skulk away and hope we’re not next? Or will we stand by them and challenge -- as freedom-loving Americans -- the tyranny of lawless leaders.
-- Phil Trieb		 
...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire.
-- Srdja Trifkovic		 
It is a known fact that the policies of the government today, whether Republican or Democrat are closer to the 1932 platform of the Communist Party than they are to either of their own party platforms in that critical year.
-- Walter Trohan		 
If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe, it will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word ‘Socialism’ is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life - forward! Neither threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones the future will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy as in the best days of my youth; because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future.
-- Leon Trotsky		 
Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government.
-- Leon Trotsky		 
A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.
-- Pierre Trudeau		 
As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane.
-- Pierre Trudeau		 
Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.
-- Pierre Trudeau		 
What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.
-- Pierre Trudeau		 
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
It's not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It's the hand that casts the ballot.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
It's an old political trick: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em." But this time it won't work.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have.
-- Harry S. Truman		 
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
-- Mao Tse-Tung		 
Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'  Our principle is that the [Communist] Party commands the gun and the gun will never be allowed to command the Party.
-- Mao Tse-tung		 
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
-- Mao Tse-Tung		 
I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves.
-- Harriet Tubman		 
We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them.
-- Benjamin R. Tucker		 
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
-- Judge Gideon J. Tucker		 
No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.
-- Gideon J. Tucker		 
To secure their enjoyment, however, certain protections or barriers have been erected which serve to maintain inviolate the three primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property. These may in America be said to be: 1. The bill of rights and written constitutions ...\\ 2. The rights of bearing arms -- which with us is not limited and restrained by an arbitrary system of game laws as in England, but is particularly enjoyed by every citizen, and is among his most valuable privileges, since it furnishes the means of resisting as a freeman ought, the inroads of usurpation.\\ 3. The right of applying to the courts of justice for the redress of injuries.
-- Henry St. George Tucker		 
Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.
-- St. George Tucker		 
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. ... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
-- St. George Tucker		 
Let no Negroe or mulattoe be cabable of taking, holding, or exercising any public office, freehold, franchise or privilege. ... Nor of keeping, or bearing arms, unless authorized to do by some act of the general assembly, whose duration shall be limited to three years.
-- St. George Tucker		 
Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa ... Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty ... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies ... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die ... we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained.
-- St. George Tucker		 


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