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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients.
-- Alan Dershowitz		 
You know, being black doesn’t give you a license to call people racist any more than being Jewish gives you license to call people anti-Semitic.
-- Alan Dershowitz		 
If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness.
-- Alan Dershowitz		 
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
-- Rene Descartes		 
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-- Rene Descartes		 
In 1983 $21 billion was spent in agricultural subsidies—almost equal to the net income of all American farmers.
-- Patrick Detches		 
The object of any tyrant would be to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.
-- Sir Patrick Devlin		 
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.
-- Sir James Dewar		 
Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.
-- John Dewey (False)		 
The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.... In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
-- John Dewey		 
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity.
-- John Dewey		 
Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large.
-- John Dewey		 
Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either/Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities.
-- John Dewey		 
Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent. ... From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer in the America that our Founding Fathers intended for us.
-- John F. Di Leo		 
Conscience warns us before it reproaches us.
-- Comtesse Diane		 
It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.
-- Dick Cavett		 
Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.
-- Charles Dickens		 
I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Donīt trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if anything is to be got by it.
-- Charles Dickens		 
Indeed nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty: For as violations of the rights of the governed, are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner, as to touch individuals but slightly. Thus they are disregarded. The power or profit that arises from these violations centering in few persons, is to them considerable. For this reason the governors having in view their particular purposes, successively preserve an uniformity of conduct for attaining them. They regularly increase the first injuries, till at length the inattentive people are compelled to perceive the heaviness of their burthens -- They begin to complain and inquire — but too late. They find their oppressors so strengthened by success, and themselves so entangled in examples of express authority on the part of their rulers, and of tacit recognition on their own part, that they are quite confounded: for millions entertain no other idea of the legality of power, than it is founded on the exercise of power.
-- John Dickenson		 
Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is exercised, but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised.
-- John Dickenson		 
Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.
-- Emily Dickinson		 
Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.
-- Emily Dickinson		 
Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source -- from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.
-- John Dickinson		 
Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash.
-- Bo Diddley		 
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
-- Denis Diderot		 
To brand man with infamy, and let him free, is an absurdity that peoples our forests with assassins. [Fr., Rendre l'homme infame, et le laisser libre, est une absurdite qui peuple nos forets d'assassins.]
-- Denis Diderot		 
Freedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent…The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words.
-- John G. Diefenbaker		 
I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.
-- John G. Diefenbaker		 
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.
-- John G. Diefenbaker		 
Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good.
-- Alexander Dielius		 
If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can’t protect their conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you take a long step toward making a transition from a free society to a totalitarian society.
-- Whitfield Diffie		 
It is no coincidence that some of America’s most lethargic industries—steel, footwear, rubber, textiles—are also among the most heavily protected.
-- Thomas DiLorenzo		 
The theory of natural monopoly is an economic fiction. No such thing as a 'natural' monopoly has ever existed. The history of the so-called public utility concept is that the late 19th and early 20th-century 'utilities' competed vigorously, and like all other industries, they did not like competition. They first secured government-sanctioned monopolies, and then, with the help of a few influential economists, they constructed an ex post facto rationalization for their monopoly power. ... The theory of natural monopoly is a 19th-century economic fiction that defends 19th-century (or 18th-century, in the case of the U.S. Postal Service) monopolistic privileges and has no useful place in the 21st-century American economy.
-- Thomas J. DiLorenzo		 
On February 27, black-uniformed men of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wearing “coal scuttle” helmets and carrying German-made machine pistols attacked the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Fifty years earlier, in January 1943, blackuniformed SS men wearing “coal scuttle” helmets and carrying German-made machine pistols attacked the Jewish compound in Warsaw, Poland. The BATF men were searching for illegal weapons reported by a paid informant to be in the Branch Davidian Compound. The SS men were searching for illegal weapons reported by a paid informant to be in the Warsaw ghetto. Reports from Texas indicate the Branch Davidians kept to themselves and harmed no one outside their compound prior to the BATF assault. History tells us the Jews kept to themselves and harmed no one outside the Warsaw ghetto prior to the SS assault. The U.S. broadcast news media tell us that the Branch Davidians practice contemptible sexual rituals involving young children, so they are an evil religious cult. Nazi news media told the German populace that the Jews practiced contemptible sexual rituals involving children, so they were an evil religion. The BATF invited the U.S. news media to document the BATF assault to show the American public how dangerous the Branch Davidians are. The SS had propagandists documents its assault to show the German public how dangerous the Jews were. Four BATF men were killed and 16 wounded in the initial assault on the Branch Davidian compound. Eleven SS men were killed and an unrecorded number wounded in the initial assault on the Warsaw ghetto. After the initial assault, the BATF men magnanimously arranged a truce so children could be evacuated from the Branch Davidian Compound (and they could tend to their casualties). After their initial assault, the SS men magnanimously arranged a truce so children could be evacuated from the Warsaw ghetto compound (and they could tend to their casualties). The BATF called up military units with armored vehicles to finish off the Branch Davidian compound after encountering fierce resistance against the initial assault. The SS called up military units with armored vehicles to finish off the Warsaw ghetto after encountering fierce resistance against the initial assault. Fifty years have passed, but little has changed.
-- John D. Dingell, III		 
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
-- Diogenes		 
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
-- Dionysius, the Elder		 
A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.
-- Everett Dirksen		 
The New York Times is deliberately pitched to the liberal point of view.
-- Herman Dismore		 
Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
I repeat... that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection, it is plunder.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of the public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valueable, and your freedom less complete.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant, they are incidental to a free and constitutional country, and you must put up with these inconveniences or do without many important advantages.
-- Benjamin Disraeli		 
[Tyranny is] to compel men not to think as they do, to compel men to express thoughts that are not their own.
-- Milovan Djilas		 
The notion of editorial independence from ownership only dates back to the 1930s. Prior to that time the media was openly biased and that includes the Press that the founding fathers dealt with. Some of the founders like Hamilton and Franklin had actually ran media outlets that were very biased. You used to have things like Newspapers that openly proclaimed they were a Democratic or Republican or Whig or a Federalist newspaper right on the banner. The concept of an independent and allegedly neutral press was and still is mainly pushed by people from the left who do NOT want anything remotely neutral, but who instead want to make sure those "evil" business interests don't have a means of getting their side aired without it being filtered by their idea of what a neutral press consists of.
-- John Dobbins		 
The GOP has as much commitment to small government as the Democratic Party has to a strong national defense.
-- John Dobbins		 
Conform and be dull.
-- James Frank Dobie		 
To those who find it difficult to understand how a mind can be imprisoned, my puny indictment of the communist movement before the Tydings Committee may have seemed slight indeed, for I no doubt gave some comfort to the Party by my negative approach. But it takes time to “unbecome” a Communist.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
What I had failed to understand was that the security I felt in the Party was that of a group and that affection in that strange communist world is never a personal emotion. You were loved or hated on the basis of group acceptance, and emotions were stirred or dulled by propaganda. That propaganda was made by the powerful people at the top. That is why ordinary Communists get along well with their groups: they think and feel together and work toward a common goal.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
I was at last beginning to see how ignorant I had become, how long since I had read anything except Party literature. I thought of our bookshelves stripped of books questioned by the Party, how when a writer was expelled from the Party his books went, too. I thought of the systematic rewriting of Soviet history, the revaluation, and in some cases the blotting out of any mention of such persons as Trotsky. I thought of the successive purges. Suddenly I too wanted the answers to the questions Senator Hickenlooper was asking and I wanted the truth. I found myself hitting at the duplicity of the Communist Party.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
The process of completely freeing oneself emotionally from being a Communist is a thing no outsider can understand. The group thinking and group planning and the group life of the Party had been a part of me for so long that it was desperately difficult for me to be a person again. ... But I had begun the process of “unbecoming” a Communist. It was a long and painful process, much like that of a polio victim who has to learn to walk all over again. I had to learn to think. I had to learn to love. I had to drain the hate and frenzy from my system. I had to dislodge the self and the pride that had made me arrogant, made me feel that I knew all the answers. I had to learn that I knew nothing. There were many stumbling blocks in this process.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
I think the Communist conspiracy is merely a branch of a much bigger conspiracy! … I would certainly like to find out who is really running things.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
There had been many things I had not really understood. I had regarded the Communist Party as a poor man’s party, and thought the presence of certain men of wealth within it accidental. I now saw this was no accident. I regarded the Party as a monolithic organization with the leadership in the National Committee and the National Board. Now I saw this was only a facade placed there by the movement to create the illusion of the poor man’s party; it was in reality a device to control the “common man” they so raucously championed.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
We in the Party had been told in 1945, after the publication of the Duclos letter, that the Party in the United States would have a difficult role to play. Our country, we were told, would be the last to be taken by the Communists; the Party in the United States would often find itself in opposition not only to the interests of our government, but even against the interests of our own workers. Now I realized that, with the best motives and a desire to serve the working people of my country, I, and thousands like me, had been led to a betrayal of these very people. I now saw that I had been poised on the side of those who sought the destruction of my own country. I thought of an answer Pop Mindel, of the Party’s Education Bureau, had once given me in reply to the question whether the Party would oppose the entry of our boys into the Army. I had asked this question at a time when the Communists were conducting a violent campaign for peace, and it seemed reasonable to me to draw pacifist conclusions. Pop Mindel sucked on his pipe and with a knowing look in his eyes said: “Well, if we keep our members from the Army, then where will our boys learn to use weapons with which to seize power?” I realized how the Soviets had utilized Spain as a preview of the revolution to come. Now other peoples had become expendable — the Koreans, North and South, the Chinese soldiers, and the American soldiers. I found myself praying, “God, help them all.” What now became clear to me was the collusion of these two forces: the Communists with their timetable for world control, and certain mercenary forces in the free world bent on making profit from blood. But I was alone with these thoughts and had no opportunity to talk over my conclusions with friends.
-- Dr. Bella Dodd		 
Our whole political system rests on the distinction between constitutional and other laws. The former are the solemn principles laid down by the people in its ultimate sovereignty; the latter are regulations made by its representatives within the limits of their authority, and the courts can hold unauthorized and void any act which exceeds those limits. The courts can do this because they are maintaining against the legislature the fundamental principles which the people themselves have determined to support, and they can do it only so long as the people feel that the constitution is something more sacred and enduring than ordinary laws, something that derives its force from a higher authority.
-- Walter F. Dodd		 
A clique of US industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. … Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.
-- William E. Dodd		 
After fifty years as a Prohibitionist, I am more convinced than ever that we need a good party, not just good men and good women. Most public officials are united in the war against terrorism. They, like we, are outraged at the deaths of some 3,000 Americans on September 11. Yet, most are willing to give unqualified support to the traffic in liquor and tobacco in exchange for campaign cash. Those products jointly claim at least 600,000 American lives each year. Two hundred die each year from use of alcohol and tobacco for every one who died in the September 11 attacks. Need another reason for being a Prohibitionist?
-- Earl F. Dodge		 
It’s never more important to move slowly and carefully before granting the state new powers than in the wake of tragedies.
-- Brian Doherty		 
[M]onopoly profits exist over the long run only when the government guarantees them, as in utilities and cable. And for concentration of market power, no robber baron can hold a candle to the U.S. government.... The hugest concentration of market power in this country does not lie with the likes of Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates, but with government itself.... No private company, no matter how huge or wealthy, could possibly have as much widespread power over the function of American markets as government does. And this power is exercised with essential unseriousness.... And unlike business attempts to make money, which necessarily involve selling something to a willing consumer, government’s market manipulations require forcing people into situations -- whether paying for cars or food, paying for R&D or new technologies, or selling off a part of their company -- that they would not have wanted to be in but for the government’s ham-handed threat of force.... Nothing could serve the workings of the marketplace better than [government] leaving it.
-- Brian Doherty		 
The United States has no jurisdiction. No representative of administrative, judicial, military, or police authority of the United States may enter that zone without permission of the Secretary-General. In short: as long as the seat of the United Nations remains within the United States, the area occupied by the United Nations is considered as extraterritorial [separate from the United States] with full diplomatic privileges and immunities.
-- Louis Dolivet		 
Welfare rights are pseudo-rights: They rely on the force of law to take private property for the use of others without compensation and without consent. Public charity is forced charity; it is not a virtue but a vice.
-- James A. Dorn		 
...and by the way, Mr.Speaker, the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It's for hunting politicians, like in Grozny, and in the colonies in 1776, or when they take your independence away.
-- Robert Dornan		 
Free speech is essential to education, especially to a liberal education, which encourages the search for truths in art and science. If expression is restricted, the range of inquiry is also curtailed... The beneficiaries of a free society have a duty to pursue the truth and to protect the freedom of expression that makes possible the search for a new enlightenment.
-- Norman Dorsen		 


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