Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

 
Famous quotes, quotations, sayings, phrases, idioms, proverbs, and axioms about Liberty and the Responsibility that comes with it. 
 


The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

A classic since 1953 with over 20,000 quotes from over 3,000 authors.


Famous Last Words

Apt Observations, Pleas, Curses, Benedictions, Sour Notes, Bons Mots, and Insights from People on the Brink of Departure


Stretch Your Wings

Famous Black Quotations for the Young


American Quotations

An exhaustive collection of profound quotes from the founding fathers, presidents, statesmen, scientists, constitutions, court decisions


The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations


Last Words of Saints and Sinners

700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History


America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations

Contains over 2,100 profound quotations from founding fathers, presidents, constitutions, court decisions and more


The Law

This 1850 classic is an absolute must read for anyone interested in law, justice, truth, or liberty. A most compelling and revolutionary look at The Law.


Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition)


The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians

Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix!


The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said

Another great collection of stupidity


Quotable Quotes

Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine


The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time

You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less.


2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs

Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness.


Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings

A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference.


Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said

Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners.


Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries.


Quotations for Public Speakers

A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology


Liberty - The American Revolution

This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom.


Founding Fathers

The story of how these disparate characters fomented rebellion in the colonies, formed the Continental Congress, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote the Constitution


Libertarianism: A Primer

David Boaz, director of the Cato Institute, has written a simple introduction to Libertarianism inteneded to appeal to disgruntled Democrats and Republicans everywhere.


The Libertarian Reader

Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman


Thomas Paine: Collected Writings

All the classics: Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters

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Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/humanism">Humanism Quotes</a>]Humanism Quotes
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Henry Brooks AdamsNothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
John AdamsAll the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
John AdamsThe priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
Samuel AdamsShame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble
and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!
Samuel AdamsNo people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can
any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is
preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant,
and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own
weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.
AeschylusI would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.
Herbert Sebastien AgarThe truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Fisher AmesThe known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.
Isaac AsimovHumanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
Isaac AsimovIf knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
William J. AstoreWhen it comes to our nation's military affairs, ignorance is not bliss.  What's remarkable then, given the permanent state of war in which we find ourselves, is how many Americans seem content not to know.
Aung San Suu KyiThe quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear.
Roger BaconThere are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
Walter BagehotSo long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong.
Frederic BastiatActually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter, ready to receive everything -- form, face, energy, movement, life -- from a great prince or a great legislator or a great genius. These centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And antiquity presents everywhere -- in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome -- the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and of fraud. But this does not prove that this situation is desirable. It proves only that since men and society are capable of improvement, it is naturally to be expected that error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition should be greatest towards the origins of history. The writers quoted above were not in error when they found ancient institutions to be such, but they were in error when they offered them for the admiration and imitation of future generations. Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for granted the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial societies of the ancient world. They did not understand that knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that in proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side of right, and society regains possession of itself.
Frederic BastiatSociety is composed of men, and every man is a FREE agent. Since man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. I go further: He must err and he must suffer; for his starting point is ignorance, and in his ignorance he sees before him an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which save one lead to error.
Frederic BastiatThe state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
Charles BaudelaireThe devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!
Cardnial Robert BellarmineTo assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.
Isaiah BerlinInjustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance -- these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.
Josh BillingsThe trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so.
Jim BishopThe truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Justice Hugo L. BlackThe layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional.
Reuben BladesI think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.
William BlakeMore! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul.
William BlaseTo be paranoid means to believe in delusions of danger and persecution. If the danger is real, and the evidence credible, then it cannot be delusional. To ignore the evidence, and hope that it CANNOT be true, is more an evidence of mental illness.
George BoasWhen we think of the past, we forget the fools and remember the sage. We reverse the process for our own time.
Daniel BoorstinWe must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.
Neal BoortzHow many Catholic schools do you think teach the students to question the authority of the Pope? Do you believe Christian schools teach students to question or challenge the authority of Jesus Christ? Do military schools teach the cadets to challenge the authority of superior officers? Well, why should we then expect government schools to teach children to question the authority of government?
James BovardTo blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.
Justice Louis D. BrandeisThe constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.
Major General Smedley Darlington ButlerMy mental faculties remained in suspended animation
while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.
This is typical with everyone in the military.
Gaius Julius CaesarMen willingly believe what they wish.
Andrew CarnegieI choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves. They never pauperize. They reach the aspiring and open to these chief treasures of the world -- those stored up in books. A taste for reading drives out lower tastes.
James CarvilleThe Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.
Dick CavettAs long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
Edmund B. ChaffeeThe majority of us are for free speech when it deals with subjects concerning which we have no intense feelings.
Sir Winston ChurchillTruth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.
Sir Winston ChurchillThe best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Sir Winston ChurchillSocialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.
Marcus Tullius CiceroWise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; the beasts, by nature.
Marcus Tullius CiceroTo be ignorant of what happened before you were born... is to live the life of a child for ever.
Marcus Tullius CiceroA nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.
Justice Tom C. ClarkNothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.
Charles Caleb ColtonPrecisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.
Committee on American CitizenshipLawyers are being graduated from our law schools by the thousands who have little knowledge of the Constitution. When  organizations seek a lawyer to instruct them on the Constitution, they find it nearly impossible to secure one competent.
ConfuciusReal knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
William CowperFreedom has a thousand charms to show,\\
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
Charles DarwinIgnorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
Perry de HavillandI have often lamented that with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the forces of liberalism did not spend nearly enough time ruthlessly driving intellectual stakes through the hearts of all those who supported the 'Evil Empire' or preached appeasement or claimed that the Soviet system was 'just another way of living' rather than a mass murderous tyranny.
François Duc de La RochefoucauldWe have all sufficient strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
Alphonse de LamartineRepublicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism.
Louis Charles Alfred de MussetFew persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de RobespierreThe secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance.
Alexis de TocquevilleWhere are we then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?
Lisa DelpitThose with power are frequently least aware of -- or least willing to acknowledge -- its existence [and] those with less power are often most aware of its existence.
Dr. Bella DoddI was at last beginning to see how ignorant I had become, how long since I had read anything except Party literature. I thought of our bookshelves stripped of books questioned by the Party, how when a writer was expelled from the Party his books went, too. I thought of the systematic rewriting of Soviet history, the revaluation, and in some cases the blotting out of any mention of such persons as Trotsky. I thought of the successive purges. Suddenly I too wanted the answers to the questions Senator Hickenlooper was asking and I wanted the truth. I found myself hitting at the duplicity of the Communist Party.
Norman DouglasYes; truth blends well with untruth. It is one of the maladies of our age, a sign of sheer nervousness, to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake.
Justice William O. DouglasAs nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
John DrydenOf all the tyrannies on human kind / the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
Alexandre DumasRogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Will DurantTo speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPeople only see what they are prepared to see.


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