Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

Click on the name to open the full quote and the details about the quote's origin. Quotes are also grouped by Category and Author.  
 
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
-- Buddha
 
If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.
-- Buddha
 
What we think, we become.
-- Buddha
 
They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma.
-- Buddha
 
To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle.
-- Buddha
 
When one has the feeling of dislike for evil, when one feels tranquil, one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings; when one has these feelings and appreciates them, one is free of fear.
-- Buddha
 
We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
-- Buddha
 
Inward calm cannot be maintained unless physical strength is constantly and intelligently replenished.
-- Buddha
 
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
-- Buddha
 
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.
-- Buddha
 
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
-- Buddha
 
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
-- Buddha
 
Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
-- Buddha
 
All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.
-- Buddha
 
There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.
-- Buddha
 
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
-- Buddha
 
Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.
-- Buddha
 
Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.
-- Buddha
 
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
-- Buddha
 
You are all the Buddha.
-- Buddha
 
Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball.
-- Warren Buffett
 
...it's a good idea to review past mistakes before committing new ones.
-- Warren Buffett
 
Marihuana is a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine. I am surprised to learn that certain police officers have been inclined to minimize the effects of the use of marihuana. They would, I am sure, be convinced that the drug is adhering to its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical demoralization, and mental breakdown. A study of the effects of marihuana shows clearly that it is a dangerous drug, and Bureau records prove that its use is associated with insanity and crime.
-- Bulletin of the FBI
 
No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.
-- Alan Bullock
 
'Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes.
-- Christopher Bullock
 
The pen is mightier than the sword.
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
 
There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
 
If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
 
Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
 
Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
 
Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
 
It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.
-- Luther Burbank
 
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet or they remain sterile abstractions. The hands and feet we need are efficient means and methods to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost.
-- Justice Warren E. Burger
 
There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and the Amish or others like them are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
-- Justice Warren E. Burger
 
... ours is a sick profession marked by incompetence, lack of training, misconduct and bad manners. Ineptness, bungling, malpractice, and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over this country every day ... these incompetents have a seeming unawareness of the fundamental ethics of the profession. ... the harsh truth is that ... we may well be on our way to a society, overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts, and brigades of judges in numbers never before contemplated.
-- Justice Warren E. Burger
 
There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse.
-- Justice Warren E. Burger
 
Judges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.
-- Justice Warren E. Burger
 
Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress.
-- Frank Gelett Burgess
 
No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.
-- James Burgh
 
All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people.
-- James Burgh
 
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
-- Edmund Burke
 
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
-- Edmund Burke
 
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
-- Edmund Burke
 
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
-- Edmund Burke
 
The use of force alone is but temporary.  It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
-- Edmund Burke
 
To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
-- Edmund Burke
 
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.
-- Edmund Burke
 
It is by this tribunal that statesmen [are tried] not upon the niceties of a narrow jurisprudence but upon the enlarged and solid principles of morality.
-- Edmund Burke
 
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
-- Edmund Burke
 
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
-- Edmund Burke
 
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
-- Edmund Burke
 
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
-- Edmund Burke
 
The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded.
-- Edmund Burke
 
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
-- Edmund Burke
 
People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous...
-- Edmund Burke
 
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
-- Edmund Burke
 
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
-- Edmund Burke
 
I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. ... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.
-- Edmund Burke
 
In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
-- Edmund Burke
 
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
-- Edmund Burke
 
There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
-- Edmund Burke
 
Liberty, without wisdom, is license.
-- Edmund Burke
 
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
-- Edmund Burke
 
The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse.
-- Edmund Burke
 
All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.
-- Edmund Burke
 
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
-- Edmund Burke
 


Daily Quotes
Ready to be inspired?
Sign up for a daily dose of Liberty Quotes!
Leave us your email address to subscribe.
Email:

Here's the Daily Quote history.

Browse quotes by
Authors, Categories,
and Cryptograms!



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


(c) Copyright 1999-2025