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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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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		 
I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: "Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine?
-- Leonardo da Vinci		 
It takes a long time to understand nothing.
-- Edward Dahlberg		 
Today, The Daily Telegraph starts its 'A Free Country' campaign. Week by week, and in major individual investigations, we shall examine how freedom is being taken away, whether by Westminster or Whitehall or Brussels or any other authority. We shall try to annoy the control freaks, whether they are Right, Left or Centre, and we shall welcome allies for freedom from all quarters. The Conservative leadership contestants hardly breathe a word about freedom. The Labour Government's Queen's Speech is a shopping list of attacks on our liberties. There's plenty to do. Libertad o muerte!
-- Daily Telegraph		 
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.
-- Dalai Lama		 
The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder.
-- Mayor Richard Daley		 
...it was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World-Money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York Market.
-- Curtis Dall		 
...Most of his thoughts, his political 'ammunition,'...were carefully manufactured for him in advance by the CFR-One World Money group. Brilliantly... he exploded that prepared 'ammunition' in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people--and thus paid off and retained his internationalist political support.
-- Curtis Dall		 
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. 
-- Theodore Dalrymple		 
There has never in the history of the civilized world been a cohort of kids that is so little affected by adult guidance and so attuned to a peer world. We have removed grown-up wisdom and allowed them to drift into a self-constructed, highly relativistic world of friendship and peers.
-- William Damon		 
Our experience has shown us that in the excitement of great popular elections, deciding the policy of the country, and its vast patronage, frauds will be committed, if a chance is given for them. If these frauds are allowed, the result is not only that the popular will may be defeated, and the result falsified, but that the worst side will prevail. The side which has the greater number of dishonest men will poll the most votes. The war cry, "Vote early and vote often!" and the familiar problem, "how to cast the greatest number of votes with the smallest number of voters", indicate the direction in which the dangers lie.
-- Richard Henry Dana, Jr.		 
Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.
-- Frank Dane		 
I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.
-- John C. Danforth		 
It is up to you to decide whether or not you’re ready to be free, really free. This pertains to your relationship as well as your activities in the world. You are limitless, if you choose that! Your freedom comes from letting go. Freedom means empowerment to be, do, go, feel, whatever your heart tells you. Only you have kept yourself from having this freedom out of some misunderstanding of what your responsibilities really are. Your responsibilities are to your Self. Serve that truly, fully, and you serve All.
-- Alma Daniel		 
Every private citizen has a public responsibility.
-- Myra Janco Daniels		 
He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning.
-- Danish Proverb		 
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
-- Dante		 
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. From him who will not give her all, she will have nothing. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private school . . . At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
There is no such thing as justice -- in or out of court.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 
The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. The modern world is the child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and faith.
-- Clarence S. Darrow		 


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