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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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No shade tree? Blame not the sun, but yourself.
-- Unknown		 
A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist.
-- Unknown		 
Politicians are like diapers and need to be changed for the same reason.
-- Unknown		 
If you think talk is cheap, hire a lawyer.
-- Unknown		 
America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar, and use it up in two weeks.
-- Unknown		 
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.
-- Unknown		 
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
-- Unknown		 
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
-- Unknown		 
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
-- Unknown		 
Truth fears no questions.
-- Unknown		 
Some people will not tolerate such emotional honesty in communication. They would rather defend their dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others. Therefore, having rationalized their phoniness into nobility, they settle for superficial relationships.
-- Unknown		 
Always tell the truth. Even if you have to make it up.
-- Unknown		 
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
-- Unknown		 
Always tell the truth. If you can't always tell the truth, don't lie.
-- Unknown		 
Beware of the half truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.
-- Unknown		 
A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.
-- Unknown		 
The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.
-- John Updike		 
The Federal Government is the creature of the States. It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it -- the creation of that agreement which was made by the States as parties. It is a mere agent, entrusted with limited powers for certain specific objects; which powers and objects are enumerated in the Constitution. Shall the agent be permitted to judge the extent of its own powers, without reference to his constituent? To a certain extent, he is compelled to do this, in the very act of exercising them, but always in subordination to the authority by whom his powers were conferred. If this were not so, the result would be, that the agent would possess every power which the agent could confer, notwithstanding the plainest and most express terms of the grant. This would be against all principle and all reason. If such a rule would prevail in regard to government, a written constitution would be the idlest thing imaginable. It would afford no barrier against the usurpations of the government, and no security for the rights and liberties of the people. If then the Federal Government has no authority to judge, in the last resort, of the extent of its own powers, with what propriety can it be said that a single department of that government may do so? Nay. It is said that this department may not only judge for itself, but for the other departments also. This is an absurdity as pernicious as it is gross and palpable. If the judiciary may determine the powers of the Federal Government, it may pronounce them either less or more than they really are.
-- Abel Upshur		 
Terrorism is the war of the poor. War is the terrorism of the rich.
-- Leon Uris		 
The principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States.
-- US Agency for International Development		 
If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion. The Establishment Clause does not license government to treat religion and those who teach or practice it … as subversive of American ideals.
-- US Supreme Court		 
Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, [chaos].
-- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25		 
No state shall ... make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
-- U. S. Constitution		 
The Congress shall have power: To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
-- U. S. Constitution		 
Series 1863-1934 U.S. Gold Certificate - This is to certify that there have been deposited in the treasury of The United States of America [denomination face value, i.e. Ten Dollars] in gold coin payable to the bearer on demand.
Series 1886-1963 U.S. Silver Certificate - This certifies that there is on deposit in the treasury of The United States of America [denomination face value, i.e. Ten Dollars] in silver payable to the bearer on demand.
Series 1913-1934 Federal Reserve Note - Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.
Series 1934-1963 Federal Reserve Note - This note is legal tender for all debts public and private and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank.
Series 1963- Federal Reserve Note - This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.

-- U. S. Currency		 
The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.
-- U. S. Privacy Study Commission		 
Mind Your Business
-- U. S. Treasury		 
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
-- U.S. Constitution		 
This Constitution... shall be the Supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby
-- U.S. Constitution Article VI		 
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
-- U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Sec. 2		 
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
-- U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8		 
All ...Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation.
-- U.S. Constitution, Article VI		 
This Constitution, ...shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby
-- U.S. Constitution, Article VI		 
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Ninth Amendment		 
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
-- U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment		 
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment		 
The pages of history shine instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia		 
Jury lawlessness is the greatest corrective of law in its actual administration. The will of the state at large imposed on a reluctant community, the will of a majority imposed on a vigorous and determined minority, find the same obstacle in the local jury that formerly confronted kings and ministers.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia		 
[T]he jury, as the conscience of the community, must be permitted to look at more than logic.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals First Circuit		 
The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of it's prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia		 
We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge. If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused, is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic of passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Maryland		 
From now onwards the jury enters on a new phase of its history, and for the next three centuries it will exercise its power of veto on the use of the criminal law against political offenders who have succeeded in obtaining popular sympathy.
-- U.S. Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit		 
We [the U.S.] must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order . . . we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.
-- U.S. Department of Defense Planning Guide for 1994-1999		 
The United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana.
-- U.S. Department of State		 
Oil resources constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.
-- U.S. State Department Memo, 1944		 
[The] purpose of a jury is to . . . make available the common sense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over conditioned or biased response of a judge.
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
Since it was first recognized in [the] Magna Carta, trial by jury has been a prized shield against oppression ....
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others its legitimate functions.
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
[T]he jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
Emitting bills of credit, or the creation of money by private corporations, is what is expressly forbidden by Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.
-- U.S. Supreme Court (False)		 
In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution, entrusted to it: All else is withheld.
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
It may not be amiss, here, Gentleman, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. ... For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court are the best judges of law. But still both objects are lawfully, within your power of decision.
-- U.S. Supreme Court		 
The right of the people peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and always has been one of the attributes of a free government. It 'derives its source,' to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in 'Gibbons v Ogden,' 9 Wheat., 211, 'from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.' It is found wherever civilization exists. It was not... a right granted to the people by the Constitution... The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.
-- U.S. vs. Cruickshan		 
The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge...
-- U.S. vs. Dougherty		 
Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.
-- Paul Valéry		 
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
-- Paul Valéry		 
The world acquires value only through its extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.
-- Paul Valéry		 
Just as there is a very short distance between the U.S. and Cuba, there is a very short distance between a democracy and a dictatorship where the government gets to decide what to do, how to think, and how to live. And sometimes your freedom is not taken away at gunpoint, but instead it is done one piece of paper at a time, one seemingly meaningless rule at a time, one small silencing at a time. Never allow the government – or anyone else – to tell you what you can or cannot believe or what you can and cannot say or what your conscience tells you to have to do or not do.
-- Armando Valladares		 
The difference between [people who take civil liberties seriously] and others ... is that such serious people begin with a constitutional understanding that declines to trivialize the Second Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment, just as they likewise decline to trivialize any other right expressly identified elsewhere in the Bill of Rights. It is difficult to see why they are less than entirely right in this unremarkable view. That it has taken the NRA to speak for them, with respect to the Second Amendment, moreover, is merely interesting -- perhaps far more as a comment on others, however, than on the NRA.
-- William Van Alstyne		 
The Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, is ... not mysterious. Nor is it equivocal. Least of all is it opaque. Rather, one may say, today it is simply unwelcome in any community that wants no one (save perhaps the police?) to keep or bear arms at all. But ... it is for them to seek repeal of this amendment (and so the repeal of its guarantee), in order to have their way. Or so the Constitution itself assuredly appears to require, if that is the way things are to be.
-- William Van Alstyne		 
Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.
-- Abigail Van Buren		 
I agree that marijuana laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of marijuana -- if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally approved such legislation.
-- Abigail Van Buren		 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
-- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut		 
An unexamined idea, to paraphrase Socrates, is not worth having and a society whose ideas are never explored for possible error may eventually find its foundations insecure.
-- Mark Van Doren		 
To be what no one ever was, to be what everyone has been: Freedom is the mean of those extremes that fence all effort in.
-- Mark Van Doren		 
Respect for the truth is an acquired taste.
-- Mark Van Doren		 
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
-- Vincent van Gogh		 
Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession -- their ignorance.
-- Hendrik van Loon		 
Is it not ironical that in a planned society of controlled workers given compulsory assignments, where religious expression is suppressed, the press controlled, and all media of communication censored, where a puppet government is encouraged but denied any real authority, where great attention is given to efficiency and character reports, and attendance at cultural assemblies is mandatory, where it is avowed that all will be administered to each according to his needs and performance required from each according to his abilities, and where those who flee are tracked down, returned, and punished for trying to escape - in short in the milieu of the typical large American secondary school - we attempt to teach 'the democratic system'?
-- Royce Van Norman		 
The media can now wistfully reflect on their glory days of the 1970's when the majority of people actually bought into their bullshit.
-- Laura K. Van Onymous		 
Anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no 'house rule' that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos.
-- Mike Vanderboegh		 
Using the power of the law to ensure that the law abiding are at the mercy of the lawless is an act of barbarism beyond the realms of logic. The dreamers and fools who force us to endure the carnage should be on trial along with the criminals they are creating.The world is not made more civil by forcing the civilized to be the victims of the predators. How dare you, any of you, refuse good law abiding citizens the right to defend themselves in a country where there were 25,000 murders, 105,000 reported rapes, and 975,000 armed robberies LAST YEAR?
-- Lon VanOstran		 
The tragedy of the police state is that it always regards all opposition as a crime, and there are no degrees.
-- Robert Gilbert Vansittart		 
A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.
-- Bill Vaughan		 
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-- Bill Vaughan		 


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