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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

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Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter.
-- Orson Scott Card
 
It is time for our school systems to stop accepting the gospel of that false religion and start doing their due diligence. Our children should be taught about the demonstrable solar cycles; and the whole human-caused Global Warming theory, along with the Hockey Stick Hoax, should be taught only as another example, after Piltdown Man and pre-Copernican theories of planetary movement, of how science can be corrupted when ideology gets ahead of the data.
-- Orson Scott Card
 
If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.
-- Orson Scott Card
 
The only way to learn is by changing your mind.
-- Orson Scott Card
 
The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.
-- Justice Benjamin Cardozo
 
Of...freedom [of thought and speech] one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
-- Justice Benjamin Cardozo
 
Justice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep our balance true.
-- Justice Benjamin Cardozo
 
It is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, or practical expediency, and not in rules of logic.
-- Justice Benjamin Cardozo
 
We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans:\\ My country 'tis of thee,\\ Sweet land of liberty,\\ Of thee I sing.\\ Land where my fathers died,\\ Land of the Pilgrims' pride\\ From every mountainside\\ Let freedom ring!\\ \\ That's exactly what we mean -- from every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia -- let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States, but for the disinherited of all the earth -- may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, LET FREEDOM RING!
-- Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr.
 
Free discussion is the only necessary Constitution -- the only necessary Law of the Constitution.
-- Richard Carlile
 
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.
-- Thomas Carlyle
 
Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.
-- Thomas Carlyle
 
Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man.
-- Thomas Carlyle
 
Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling buisness: and gives in the long run a net result of zero.
-- Thomas Carlyle
 
I 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.
-- Andrew Carnegie
 
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
-- Andrew Carnegie
 
All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.
-- Andrew Carnegie
 
There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
-- Andrew Carnegie
 
I believe Socialism is the grandest theory ever presented, and I am sure it will someday rule the world. Then we will have attained the Millennium... Then men will be content to work for the general welfare and share their riches with their neighbors.
-- Andrew Carnegie
 
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do.
-- Dale Carnegie
 
As the federal government has progressively become larger over the decades, every significant introduction of government regulation, taxation and spending has been to the benefit of some big business.
-- Timothy P. Carney
 
In a free country there is much clamor, with little suffering; in a despotic state there is little complaint, with much grievance.
-- Hippolyte Lazare Carnot
 
I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed. Members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones are now producers, editors. They can push and push and push on a story until it ends up being acknowledged by everyone.
-- David Carr
 
...no nation which signs this [UN] Charter can justly maintain that any of its acts are its own business, or within its own domestic jurisdiction, if the security council says that these acts are a threat to the peace.
-- William Carr
 
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.
-- Charles Carroll
 
When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less....The question is...which is to be master -- that's all.
-- Lewis Carroll
 
Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.
-- Lewis Carroll
 
My mother worked as a domestic, two, sometimes three jobs at a time because she didn’t want to be on welfare. She felt very strongly that if she gave up and went on welfare, that she would give up control of her life and of our lives, and I think she was probably correct about that. … But, one thing that she provided us was a tremendous example of what hard work is like.
-- Dr. Ben Carson
 
The more solid the family foundation, the more likely you are to be able to resist peer pressure. Human beings are social creatures. We all want to belong, we all have that desire, and we will belong, one way or another. If the family doesn’t provide that, the peers will, or a gang will, or you will find something to belong to. That’s why it becomes so critical for families with young children to understand what a critical anchor they are.
-- Dr. Ben Carson
 
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings.
-- Hodding Carter
 
The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges and juries. In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
The decision to attack the entire nation [of Yugoslavia] has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal. ... The United States' insistence on the use of cluster bombs, designed to kill or maim humans, is condemned almost universally and brings discredit on our nation (as does our refusal to support a ban on land mines). Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted.
-- Jimmy Carter
 
I think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent the claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many.
-- Sir Richard John Cartwright
 
The 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.
-- James Carville (Questionable)
 
For good or evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity.
-- Joyce Cary
 
It is sometimes said that toleration should be refused to the intolerant. In practice this would destroy it... The only remedy for dogmatism and lies is toleration and the greatest possible liberty of expression.
-- Joyce Cary
 
Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted.  I don't accept it.
-- Pablo Casals
 
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
-- Pablo Casals
 
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Casey
 
The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is.
-- John Casey
 
Considering that senior officials at the Internal Revenue Service are fully aware of the fact that there is no law currently in existence making a U.S. citizen liable for or required to pay either the income tax or the social security employment tax, only a truly generous citizen would, upon discovering this, continue to voluntarily donate these taxes to the government by allowing them to be withheld from his paycheck on a 100% voluntary W-4 withholding agreement. But, then again, the IRS would be dead in the water without the "voluntary (and docile) compliance" of employers and employees and has said so all along.
-- William Cash
 
The freedom to express varying and often opposing ideas is essential to a variety of conceptions of democracy. If democracy is viewed as essentially a process – a way in which collective decisions for a society are made – free expression is crucial to the openness of the process and to such characteristics as elections, representation of interests, and the like.
-- Jonathan D. Casper
 
Ah yes, truth. Funny how everyone is always asking for it but when they get it they don't believe it because it's not the truth they want to hear.
-- Helena Cassadine
 
In the end, legalization of certain substances may be the only way to bring prices down, and doing so may be the only remedy to some of the worst aspects of the drug plague: violence, corruption, and the collapse of the rule of law.
-- Jorge Castañeda
 
We must establish a new world order based on justice, on equity, and on peace.
-- Fidel Castro
 
The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
-- Henry Cate VII
 
The revolt against individualism naturally calls artists severely to account, because the artist is of all men the most individual; those who were not have been long forgotten.
-- Willa Cather
 
Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches.
-- Catherine of Siena
 
By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own private Actions and Property.
-- Cato
 
...I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason...
-- Cato
 
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.
-- Cato
 
Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing Freedom of Speech... Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech...
-- Cato
 
I must own, I know not what Treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason, in the eternal and original Nature of Things.
-- Cato
 
I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.
-- Cato the Younger
 
There are two kinds of restrictions on human liberty -- the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
-- Carrie Chapman Catt
 
Most reporters are very sympathetic to gun-control agendas and will skew or lie outright about facts to promote them.
-- Dennis Cauchon
 
Each peso [or dollar] is a contract between the government and the peso holder. That contract guarantees that each peso -- as a unit of value that the holder has worked hard to get -- will be worth as much tomorrow as today. If the government breaks the contract, it's breaking the law. The only role of government in the economy should be to guarantee the integrity of market transactions.
-- Domingo Cavallo
 
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
-- Dick Cavett
 
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
-- Dick Cavett
 
It's about food. It’s about your home. It’s about your life. The government is worried about all of the above. All I’m saying is you should be worried they’re worried. Here’s why: They’re telling you that you can’t take care of yourself. You can’t be trusted with what you put in your mouth or what you sign on the mortgage dotted line. So they’ll tell you what to put in your mouth and they’ll save you from what you signed on that dotted line. Does anyone see a trend here? Personal responsibility has now become government responsibility.
-- Neil Cavuto
 
You had me on (before) to talk about the new world order ... I talk about it all the time ... It's one world now ... The council (Council on foreign Relations) can find, nurture and begin to put people in the kinds of jobs this country needs. And that's going to be one of the major enterprises of the Council under me..
-- Les Celb
 
Liberty is one of the choicest gifts that heaven hath bestowed upon man, and exceeds in value all the treasures which the earth contains within its bosom, or the sea covers. Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.
-- Cervantes
 
There's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory.
-- Aimè Cèsaire
 
Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.
-- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.
 
The real value of freedom is not to the minority that wants to talk but to the majority that does not want to listen.
-- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.
 
You make men love their government and their country by giving them the kind of government and the kind of country that inspire respect and love; a country that is free and unafraid, that lets the discontented talk in order to learn the causes of their discontent and end those causes, that refuses to impel men to spy on their neighbors, that protects its citizens vigorously from harmful acts while it leaves the remedies for objectionable ideas to counter-argument and time.
-- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.
 
Freedom from something is not enough. It should also be freedom for something. Freedom is not safety but opportunity. Freedom ought to be a means to enable the press to serve the proper functions of communication in a free society.
-- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.
 
The real value of freedom is not to the minority that wants to talk, but to the majority that does not want to listen.
-- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.
 
The majority of us are for free speech when it deals with subjects concerning which we have no intense feelings.
-- Edmund B. Chaffee
 
One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle-class families of financial reserves. [It] has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State.
-- W. H. Chamberlin
 
One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle class families of financial reserves & seems to lend support to campaigns for socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized food, socialized every thing. The personal income tax has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State & more avid for state hand-outs. It has shifted the balance in America from an individual-centered to a State-centered economic & social system.
-- W. H. Chamberlin
 
The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.
-- Whittaker Chambers
 
Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.
-- Nicolas-Sebasstien Chamfort
 
Now the 21st century approaches and with it the inevitability of change. We must wonder if the American people will find renewal and rejuvenation within themselves, will discover again their capacity for innovation and adaptation. If not, alas, the nation's future will be shaped by sightless forces of history over which Americans will have no control.
-- John Chancellor
 
Once we start to worry too often and too deeply about what certain individuals and what certain groups think about us, then we might start selling our souls for the sake of expediency.
-- Otis Chandler
 
The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
-- Raymond Chandler
 
He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country.
-- Raymond Chandler
 
Money for me has only one sound: liberty.
-- Gabrielle Chanel
 
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
I call the mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith...
-- William Ellery Channing
 
Knowledge is essential to freedom.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.
-- William Ellery Channing
 
No more duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions.
-- Edwin Hubbel Chapin
 
At the bottom of a good deal of bravery... lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.
-- E. H. Chapin
 
Attack another’s rights and you destroy your own.
-- John Jay Chapman
 
Our duty, as men and women is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
 
[T]he sprawl of government into every conceivable realm of life has caused the withering of traditional institutions. Fathers become unnecessary if the government provides Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Church charities lose their mission when the government provides food, shelter and income to the poor. And the non-poor no longer feel pressed to provide aid to those in need, be they aged parents or their unfortunate neighbors—“compassion” having become the province of the state.
-- Mona Charen
 
The people's liberties strengthen the king's prerogative, and the king's prerogative is to defend the people's liberties.
-- Charles I
 
Never make a defence or apology before you be accused.
-- Charles I
 
The peak of tolerance is most readily achieved by those who are not burdened by convictions.
-- Alexander Chase
 
Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it's own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts.
-- Mary Ellen Chase
 
The legal tender quality [of money] is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.
-- Justice Salmon Chase
 


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