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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure.
-- Anthony de Jasay		 
People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.
-- Anthony de Jasay		 
Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel		 
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel		 
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel		 
The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State.
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel		 
It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.
-- Estienne de la Boétie		 
However, there is satisfaction in examining what they get out of all this torment, what advantage they derive from all the trouble of their wretched existence. Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those who influence him; peoples, nations, all compete with one another, even the peasants, even the tillers of the soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in analyzing their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand insults, a thousand obscenities, a thousand maledictions. All their prayers, all their vows are directed against these persons; they hold them accountable for all their misfortunes, their pestilences, their famines; and if at times they show them outward respect, at those very moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them in greater horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and honor heaped upon influential favorites for their services by people who, if they could tear apart their living bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated by the agony they might behold. For even when the favorites are dead those who live after are never too lazy to blacken the names of these people-eaters with the ink of a thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a thousand books, and drag, so to speak, their bones past posterity, forever punishing them after their death for their wicked lives.
-- Estienne de la Boétie		 
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.
-- Étienne de la Boétie		 
A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.
-- Jean de la Bruyere		 
A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.
-- Jean de la Bruyere		 
O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! [Fr., O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!]
-- Madame Jeanne Marie Phlipon de La Platiere Roland		 
Everyone complains of his memory, none of his judgment.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
We have all sufficient strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Love of justice in the generality of men is only the fear of suffering from injustice.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Nothing is given so profusely as advice.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld		 
Republicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism.
-- Alphonse de Lamartine		 
Void of freedom, what would virtue be?
-- Alphonse de Lamartine		 
At twenty every one is republican.
-- Alphonse de Lamartine		 
There is in human affairs one order which is best. That order is not always the one which exists; but it is the order which should exist for the greatest good of humanity. God knows, it and will it: man's duty it is to discover and establish it.
-- Emile Louis Victor de Laveleye		 
No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies.
-- Salvador de Madariaga		 
He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.
-- Salvador De Madariaga		 
He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.
-- Salvador de Madariaga		 
Every nation gets the government it deserves.
-- Joseph de Maistre		 
To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration -- nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
I quote others only the better to express myself.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
If falsehood like truth had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether things are so.
-- Michel De Montaigne		 
He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.
-- Michel de Montaigne		 
It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty. [Fr., Les republiques finissent par le luxe; les monarchies, par la pauvrete.]
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
-- Charles de Montesquieu		 
Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.
-- Louis Charles Alfred de Musset		 
The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.
-- Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre		 
The secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance.
-- Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre		 
The evil of democracy is not the triumph of quantity, but the triumph of bad quality.
-- Guido De Ruggiero		 
I know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery		 
People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry		 
True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery		 
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
-- Charles-Louis De Secondat		 
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
-- Charles-Louis de Secondat		 
Useless laws weaken necessary laws.
-- Charles-Louis de Secondat		 
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
-- Charles-Louis de Secondat		 
What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
-- Charles-Louis de Secondat		 
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
-- Charles-Louis De Secondat		 
We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.
-- Charles-Louis De Secondat		 
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
-- Charles-Louis de Secondat		 
Moral indignation is in most cases 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy.
-- Vittorio de Sica		 
It is within the police power of the state to prohibit public use of fighting words that create a danger of breach of the peace, but simply to prohibit public use of fighting words is too broad. Those words may sometimes be used in situations where there is no danger.
-- Ithiel De Sola Pool		 
It [government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 
I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 
A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 
The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 
Where are we then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 
Quand donc je refuse d'obéir à une loi injuste, je ne dénie point à la majorité le droit de commander; j'en appelle seulement de la souveraineté du peuple à la souveraineté du genre humain. Il y a des gens qui n'ont pas craint de dire qu'un peuple, dans les objets qui n'intéressaient que lui-même, ne pouvait sortir entièrement des limites de la justice et de la raison, et qu'ainsi on ne devait pas craindre de donner tout pouvoir à la majorité qui le représente. Mais c'est là un langage d'esclave.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville		 


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