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

Quotes are organized by Name and Category.

If you'd like, join us on the Liberty Tree Daily Quotes emailing list for a daily dose of Liberty Quotes in your mail box. Leave us your email address to subscribe.
Email:

Here's the Daily Quotes Log to date.


Cryptograms!
Do you like cryptograms? We've got thousands!

Authors
Indexed quotes by Author or Speaker.

Categories
Browse quotes by category or select from the list below.

Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/submission">Submission Quotes</a>]Submission Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/subservience">Subservience Quotes</a>]Subservience Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/subsidy">Subsidy Quotes</a>]Subsidy Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/substance">Substance Quotes</a>]Substance Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/subversion">Subversion Quotes</a>]Subversion Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/success">Success Quotes</a>]Success Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/suffering">Suffering Quotes</a>]Suffering Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/suicide">Suicide Quotes</a>]Suicide Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/superiority">Superiority Quotes</a>]Superiority Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/suppression">Suppression Quotes</a>]Suppression Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/surveillance">Surveillance Quotes</a>]Surveillance Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/survival">Survival Quotes</a>]Survival Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/switzerland">Switzerland Quotes</a>]Switzerland Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tariffs">Tariffs Quotes</a>]Tariffs Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/taxation">Taxation Quotes</a>]Taxation Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tax">Tax Quotes</a>]Tax Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/technocracy">Technocracy Quotes</a>]Technocracy Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/technology">Technology Quotes</a>]Technology Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/television">Television Quotes</a>]Television Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/terrorism">Terrorism Quotes</a>]Terrorism Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/thankful">Thankful Quotes</a>]Thankful Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/thanksgiving">Thanksgiving Quotes</a>]Thanksgiving Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/theft">Theft Quotes</a>]Theft Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/theocracy">Theocracy Quotes</a>]Theocracy Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/thought">Thought Quotes</a>]Thought Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/time">Time Quotes</a>]Time Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tobacco">Tobacco Quotes</a>]Tobacco Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tolerance">Tolerance Quotes</a>]Tolerance Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/torture">Torture Quotes</a>]Torture Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/totalitarian">Totalitarian Quotes</a>]Totalitarian Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/trade">Trade Quotes</a>]Trade Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tradition">Tradition Quotes</a>]Tradition Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/transgression">Transgression Quotes</a>]Transgression Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/travel">Travel Quotes</a>]Travel Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/treason">Treason Quotes</a>]Treason Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/trial">Trial Quotes</a>]Trial Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tribute">Tribute Quotes</a>]Tribute Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/trilateral+commission">Trilateral Commission Quotes</a>]Trilateral Commission Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/trust">Trust Quotes</a>]Trust Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/truth">Truth Quotes</a>]Truth Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/tyranny">Tyranny Quotes</a>]Tyranny Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/understanding">Understanding Quotes</a>]Understanding Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/unemployment">Unemployment Quotes</a>]Unemployment Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/unification">Unification Quotes</a>]Unification Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/uniformity">Uniformity Quotes</a>]Uniformity Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/union">Union Quotes</a>]Union Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/unity">Unity Quotes</a>]Unity Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/un">UN Quotes</a>]UN Quotes
Hide details for [<a href="/quotes_about/usurpation">Usurpation Quotes</a>]Usurpation Quotes
A FramerUnder every government the [last] resort of the people, is an appeal to the sword; whether to defend themselves against the open attacks of a foreign enemy, or to check the insidious encroachments of domestic foes.  Whenever a people ... entrust the defence of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens.
Charles Francis AdamsFailure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. Ten years ago such revelations as these of the Erie Railway would have sent a shudder through the community, and would have placed a stigma on every man who had had to do them. Now they merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations.
John AdamsBanks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.
John AdamsIf a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations... And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history... To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to exercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen... In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies...
Samuel AdamsThe liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution,
are worth defending at all hazards;
and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors:
they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure
and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.
It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation,
enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us
by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them
by the artifices of false and designing men.
Samuel AdamsIn short, it is the greatest Absurdity to suppose it in the Power of one or any Number of Men, at the entering into Society, to renounce their essential natural Rights or the Means of preserving those Rights, when the grand End of civil Government, from the very Nature of its Institution, is for the Support, Protection and Defense of those very Rights: The principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.
Samuel AdamsThe Legislative has no Right to absolute arbitrary Power over the Lives and Fortunes of the People: Nor can Mortals assume a Prerogative not only too high for Men but for Angels, and therefore reserv’d for the Exercise of the Deity alone.
Samuel AdamsLet us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
Samuel AdamsAll Men have a Right to remain in a State of Nature as long as they please: And in case of intolerable Oppression, civil or religious, to leave the Society they belong to and enter into another. When Men enter into Society, it is by voluntary Consent, and they have a Right to demand and insist upon the performance of such Conditions and previous Limitations as form an equitable original Compact.
Samuel AdamsIf men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel AdamsGovernors have no Right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the Station assigned them, that of honorable Servants of the Society, they would soon become Absolute Masters, Despots,and Tyrants. Hence, as a private Man has a Right to say what Wages he will give in his private Affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their Substance for the Administration of public Affairs.
Alabama, Declaration of Rights Article I Section 35That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.
Woody AllenWe stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.
AristotleTo the size of the state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for none of these
retain their facility when they are too large.
Richard ArmeyThe people themselves, not their government, should be trusted with spending their own money and making their own decisions.
Richard Armey[T]he tax code has been piling up, year after year, a symbol of everything gone wrong in America, of arrogant rulers and lost freedom, just waiting for us to pick the whole thing up and heave it away. It has to happen. Free people can put up with such laws only for so long.
Richard ArmeyGovernment is saying to the average citizen every January 1: 'For the next five months you’ll be working for us, for goals we shall determine. Is that clear? After May 5 you may look after your own needs and ambitions, but report back to us next January. Now move along.' ... If nearly half of what you make is spent by someone else, that means that half your work time is spent working for someone else. Call me a radical, but I think that comes dangerously close to being a form of indentured servitude.
Nancy AstorTruth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
Michael BadnarikI have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest." This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland.
Frederic BastiatAll you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay. ... [I]f you don’t take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system.
Frederic BastiatThe mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its purpose is to protect persons and property.... If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, or artistic -- you will then be lost in uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it on you.
Dan BaumThe [Supreme] Court during the past decade let police obtain search warrants on the strength of anonymous tips. It did away with the need for warrants when police want to search luggage, trash cans, car interiors, bus passengers, fenced private property and barns.
Paul BegalaStroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.
Bell v. HoodHistory is clear that the first ten amendments to the Constitution were adopted to secure certain common law rights of the people, against invasion by the Federal Government.
Raoul BergerUsurpation, the exercise of power not granted, is not legitimized by repetition.
Albert J. BeveridgeBeware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.


(c) Copyright 1999-2024
Privacy Policy and Terms of Use