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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas – a place where history comes to life.
-- Norman Cousins		 
I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth.
-- Norman Cousins		 
Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside of ourselves will affect us.
-- Steven R. Covey		 
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
-- Steven R. Covey		 
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
-- Richard Cowan		 
It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
-- Noël Coward		 
It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
-- Noel Coward		 
I've over-educated myself in all the things I shouldn't have known.
-- Noel Coward		 
The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
-- Abraham Cowley		 
Life is an incurable disease.
-- Abraham Cowley		 
Then liberty, like day,\\ Breaks on the soul,\\ and by a flash from Heaven\\ Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
-- William Cowper		 
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought\\ Of freedom, in that hope itself possess\\ All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,\\ The scorn of danger, and united hearts,\\ The surest presage of the good they seek.
-- William Cowper		 
Absence of occupation is not rest,\\A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
-- William Cowper		 
'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower\\ Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;\\ And we are weeds without it.
-- William Cowper		 
No, Freedom has a thousand charms to show\\ That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
-- William Cowper		 
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
-- William Cowper		 
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides.
-- William Cowper		 
To follow foolish precedents, and wink\\ With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
-- William Cowper		 
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,\\ That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
-- William Cowper		 
It is always the task of the intellectual to “think otherwise.” This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society.
-- Harvey Cox		 
The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty.
-- Patrick Cox		 
The more profound problem, however, is the degree to which many academic intellectuals, especially in the humanities, have lost their ability to distinguish the 'state' from 'society'.
-- Stephen Cox		 
The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army,  must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
-- Tench Coxe		 
The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them
-- Tench Coxe		 
As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.
-- Tench Coxe		 
Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
-- Tench Coxe		 
Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
-- Tench Coxe		 
Democracy needs more free speech for even the speech of foolish people is valuable if it serves to guarantee the right of the wise to talk.
-- David Cushman Coyle		 
[T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state -- what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations -- what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force.
-- Edward H. Crane		 
The Great Depression was not caused by laissez faire but by the actions of well-intended politicians and bureaucrats. The Federal Reserve System, after all, was not created in response to the Great Depression, but in 1913. Soon thereafter it began experimenting with its awesome powers, expanding the money supply during the roaring ‘20s, propping up the pound sterling in London, extending credit so Europeans could buy American agricultural products. All the while, Congress was becoming more and more protectionist. When the Fed reversed policies in 1929 and actually shrunk the money supply by a third over the next three years and Congress culminated its protectionist tendencies with the Smoot-Hawley tariff, the collapse was underway. The fact that Hoover then raised taxes and Roosevelt kept wages artificially high guaranteed the massive unemployment that marked the 1930s. Government caused and exacerbated the Great Depression.
-- Edward H. Crane		 
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.
-- Edward H. Crane		 
In the United States there is no phenomenon more threatening to popular government than the unwillingness of newspapers to give the facts to their readers.
-- Nelson Antrim Crawford		 
The impact of Zenger [the trial of John Zenger] on the American colonies was dramatic. Every jurisdiction which confronted the issue of the jury’s right to decide the law as well as the facts reached the same conclusion: American juries had the right to decide the law.
-- M. Kristine Creagan		 
Jury nullification is a doctrine based on the concept that “jurors have the inherent right to set aside the instructions of the judge and to reach a verdict of acquittal based upon their own consciences, and the defendant has the right to be so instructed.” Though jury nullification may seem like a shocking proposal today, it is by no means a new idea. In fact, jury nullification was first espoused nearly three and one half centuries ago.
-- M. Kristine Creagan		 
Things in law tend to be black and white. But we all know that some people are a little bit guilty, while other people are guilty as hell.
-- Donald R. Cressey		 
I operate under the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. ... It operates with the objective to simplify and exaggerate, which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists.
-- Dr. Michael Crichton		 
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
-- Michael Crichton		 
What censorship accomplishes, creating an unreal and hypocritical mythology, fomenting an attraction for forbidden fruit, inhibiting the creative minds among us and fostering an illicit trade. Above all, it curtails the right of the individual, be he creator or consumer, to satisfy his intellect and his interest without harm. In our law-rooted society, we are not the keeper of our brother’s morals – only of his rights.
-- Judith Crist		 
Morality, and the ideal of freedom which is the political expression of morality, are not the property of a given party or group, but a value that is fundamentally and universally human... No people will be truly free till all are free.
-- Benedetto Croce		 
I leave this rule for others when I'm dead, Be always sure you're right -- then go ahead.
-- Davy Crockett		 
We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not attempt to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.
-- Davy Crockett		 
We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money.
-- Davy Crockett		 
There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all.
-- Davy Crockett		 
I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.
-- Davy Crockett		 
The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established.
-- Crockett v. Sorenson		 
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
-- Oliver Cromwell		 
News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center.
-- Walter Cronkite		 
It is a seldom proffered argument as to the advantages of a free press that it has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing.
-- Walter Cronkite		 
When law enforcers are shown to have such unswerving integrity, only the most churlish among us would question the methods they use to “get their man.” Constitutional guarantees are regarded as bothersome “technicalities” that impede honest law enforcers in the performance of their duties.
-- Donna Woolfolk Cross		 
It's important to understand that the idea of political correctness, from its inception, was designed as a political weapon to silence voices of dissent ... today’s social media outrage can be tomorrow’s laws.
-- Steven Crowder		 
This is why political correctness, or Cultural Marxism,… lends itself so fashionably to easy labels. Transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, bigoted, Uncle Tom, white privilege, mainsplaining. All of these are slapped on people with "politically incorrect" opinions in an attempt to silence you... Hate speech is inextricably tied to political correctness, or Cultural Marxism, and that creates intellectual conformity -- or intellectual authoritarianism. And that’s where you start to see things like “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings” or speakers banned from campus, or people with unpopular opinions banned from social media.
-- Steven Crowder		 
This is why political correctness, or Cultural Marxism,… lends itself so fashionably to easy labels. Transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, bigoted, Uncle Tom, white privilege, mainsplaining. All of these are slapped on people with "politically incorrect" opinions in an attempt to silence you...
-- Steven Crowder		 
Our schools are, in a sense, factories, in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of twentieth-century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down.
-- Ellwood P. Cubberley		 
There is a de facto “secret government” operating nationally and internationally and involved in the highest circles of the U.S. government, exercising an impact over domestic policies and economics ranging between extreme influence to, at times, outright control. This extreme influence to outright control naturally includes the Presidency. The de facto “secret government,” much of whose intellectual—and financial—muscle are to be found in the New York office of the CFR, the great tax-free foundations, and certain international firms and corporations.
-- Mike Culbert		 
We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish.
-- John Culkin		 
To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you like everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
-- e. e. cummings		 
Only the rare taxpayer would be likely to know that he could refuse to produce his records to IRS agents... Who would believe the ironic truth that the cooperative taxpayer fares much worse than the individual who relies upon his constitutional rights.
-- Judge Walter Joseph Cummings Jr.		 
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.
-- John Philpot Curran		 
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
-- John Philpot Curran		 
A person's right to a job is as specious as his boss' right to success in business. There is no right to a minimum wage, just as there is no right to success in self-employment.
-- Rex Curry		 
There can be no crime, there can be no misdemeanor without a law written or unwritten, express or implied.
-- Benjamin Curtis		 
A greater principle is at stake than the fate of any particular president
-- Benjamin Curtis		 
Treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors are high crimes, other high crimes and misdemeanors must be akin to treason and bribery.
-- Benjamin Curtis		 
My first position is that when Congress speaks of treason, bribery, and other crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only high criminal offenses against the United States made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done. And I say that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every one of the provisions of the constitution on the subject of impeachment.
-- Benjamin Curtis		 
The big thieves hang the little ones.
-- Czech Proverb		 
Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society "progresses," the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we'll soon find government mandating Prozac in our water to prevent mental caries.
-- M. Robin D'Antan		 
Collectivist ethical principle: man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether those 'others' are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant -- the point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others.
-- Mark Da Cunha		 
In principle, there are only two fundamental political viewpoints. That is, two contradictory ends of the 'political spectrum.' Those two principles are freedom and slavery.
-- Mark Da Cunha		 
Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value.
-- Mark Da Cunha		 
Positive laws are tyrannical. One's individual rights -- whether they be life, liberty, or property -- must be sacrificed by the state in order to fulfill the positive rights of another. For example, if housing is considered a "right," then the state will have to confiscate wealth (property) from those who have provided shelter for themselves in order to house those who have not. ... True justice is realized when our lives, and property are secure, and we are free to express our thoughts without fear of retribution. Just laws are negative in nature; they exist to thwart the violation of our natural rights. Government ought to be the collective organization -- that is, the extension -- of the individual's right of self-defense, and its purpose to protect our lives, liberties, and property.
-- Mark Da Vee		 
The desire to know is natural to good men.
-- Leonardo da Vinci		 
One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
-- Leonardo da Vinci		 
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci		 
Anyone who argues by referring to authority is not using his mind but rather his memory.
-- Leonardo da Vinci		 
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci		 


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