Famous Quotes / Quotations about Liberty

Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty

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There is no expedient to which the average person will not go to avoid the hard work of thinking. -- Thomas A. Edison

We must create out of the younger generation a generation of Communists. We must turn children, who can be shaped like wax, into real, good Communists. ... We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists. -- Communist Party Education Workers Congress

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen. -- Bob Edwards

The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of the people. -- David Edwards

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather. -- Barbara Ehrenreich

That's free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing -- the truly democratic thing about it -- is that you don't even have to be a player to lose. -- Barbara Ehrenreich

You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. -- John Ehrlichman

Government of the self was the original basis for republican government, reflecting the view that civil society was much more than politics. Society was made up of men and women who gave order to their lives by entering into associations on a voluntary basis, quite apart from government, for all the various reasons of fellowship, philanthrophy, faith and commerce. -- Hans L. Eicholz

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. -- Albert Einstein

For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them. -- Albert Einstein

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. -- Albert Einstein

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. -- Albert Einstein

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. -- Albert Einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. -- Albert Einstein

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. -- Albert Einstein

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.... No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. -- Albert Einstein

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. -- Albert Einstein

The important thing is never to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs. -- Albert Einstein

The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses. -- Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. -- Albert Einstein

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! -- Albert Einstein

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. -- Albert Einstein

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by power and by force, whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual. -- Albert Einstein

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein

The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of the society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment. -- Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -- Albert Einstein

To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. -- Albert Einstein

Today's problems cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them. -- Albert Einstein

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. -- Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. -- Albert Einstein

By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. -- Albert Einstein

The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule. -- Albert Einstein

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. -- Albert Einstein

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. -- Albert Einstein

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. -- Albert Einstein

The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them. -- Albert Einstein

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. -- Albert Einstein

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. -- Albert Einstein

As the circle of knowledge expands, so does the Sphere of darkness that encompasses it. -- Albert Einstein

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot. -- Albert Einstein

Force always attracts men of low morality. -- Albert Einstein

The strength of the constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure. -- Albert Einstein

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine.� The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. -- Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. -- Albert Einstein

Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. -- Albert Einstein

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. -- Albert Einstein

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. -- Albert Einstein

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -- Albert Einstein

Free is not the same as free and easy. -- Larry Eisenberg

The free world must now prove itself worthy of its own past. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed—else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

So long as we govern our nation by the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Why are we proud [to be American]? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend -- or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

All of us have heard this term "preventive war" since the earliest days of Hitler. ... A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war. ... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

They [the founders] proclaimed to all the world the revolutionary doctrine of the divine rights of the common man. That doctrine has ever since been the heart of the American faith. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Americans, indeed all freemen, remember that in the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I developed a practice which, so far as I know, I have never violated. The practice is to avoid public mention of any name unless it can be done with favorable intent and connotation; reserve all criticism for the private conference; speak only good in public. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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