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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-- T. S. Eliot		 
The sea, as well as the air, is a free and common thing to all; and a particular nation cannot pretend to have the right to the exclusion of all others, without violating the rights of nature and public usage.
-- Elizabeth I		 
I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.
-- Edward Ellison		 
Everything is backwards;\\ everything is upside down.\\ Doctors destroy health,\\ lawyers destroy justice,\\ universities destroy knowledge,\\ governments destroy freedom,\\ the major media destroy information,\\ and religions destroy spirituality.
-- Michael Ellner		 
The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies.
-- Oliver Ellsworth		 
Pity the poor, wretched, timid soul, too faint hearted to resist his oppressors. He sings the songs of the damned, 'I cannot resist, I have too much to lose, they might take my property or confiscate my earnings, what would my family do, how would they survive?' He hides behind pretended family responsibility, failing to see that the most glorious legacy that we can bequeath to our posterity is liberty!
-- W. Vaughn Ellsworth		 
Wherever there’s a disagreement among Republicans, I’m for one of those disagreements. I’m all for it. The president’s with Russia? I’m with John McCain and Lindsey Graham, I’m for NATO! Why? [It’s a] wedge. Wedges have to be schisms, schisms have to be divides.
-- Rahm Emanuel		 
You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
-- Rahm Emanuel		 
Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
We grant no dukedoms to the few,\\ We hold like rights and shall;\\ Equal on Sunday in the pew,\\ On Monday in the mall.\\ For what avail the plough or sail,\\ Or land, or life, if freedom fail?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine Providence in behalf of the human race.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
The less government we have the better - the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
The highest compact we can make with our fellow is - "Let there be truth between us two forevermore."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Liberty is a slow fruit.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
We seldom see anybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Fame is proof that the people are gullible.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Persecution readily knits friendship between its victims.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
People only see what they are prepared to see.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson		 
The function of the censor is to censor. He has a professional interest in finding things to suppress.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
The Right of all members of society to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others must be regarded as an essential principle of a democratically organized society.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
Suppression of expression conceals the real problems confronting a society and diverts public attention from the critical issues. It is likely to result in neglect of the grievances which are the actual basis of the unrest, and this prevent their correction.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
Every man – in the development of his own personality – has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature.
-- Thomas I. Emerson		 
We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns.
-- Rahm Emmanuel		 
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
-- Rahm Emmanuel		 
The task of government in this enlightened time does not extend to actually dealing with problems. Solving problems might put bureaucrats out of work. No, the task of government is to make it look as though problems have been solved, while continuing to keep the maximum number of consultants and bureaucrats employed dealing with them.
-- Bob Emmers		 
That is true liberty, which bears a pure and firm breast.
-- Quintus Ennius		 
To open his lips is crime in a plain citizen.
-- Quintus Ennius		 
He hath freedom whoso beareth a clean and constant heart within.
-- Quintus Ennius		 
What occurs to me in reading their book is that the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name.  It isn't just propaganda any more, it's 'prop-agenda'.  It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about.  When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about.  And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'. 
-- Brian Eno		 
Only the educated are free.
-- Epictetus		 
We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.
-- Epictetus		 
Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
-- Epictetus		 
Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will.
-- Epictetus		 
He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.
-- Epictetus		 
The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions.
-- Epictetus		 
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.
-- Epicurus		 
Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency.
-- Epicurus		 
The term “Internationalism” has been popularized in recent years to cover an interlocking financial, political, and economic world force for the purpose of establishing a World Government. Today Internationalism is heralded from pulpit and platform as a “League of Nations” or a “Federated Union” to which the United States must surrender a definite part of its National Sovereignty. The World Government plan is being advocated under such alluring names as the “New International Order,” “The New World Order,” “World Union Now,” “World Commonwealth of Nations,” “World Community,” etc. All the terms have the same objective; however, the line of approach may be religious or political according to the taste or training of the individual.
-- Episcopal Church General Convention		 
America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others.
-- Alex Epstein		 
While it would be silly and ungracious to insist that intelligent deliberation on public issues is nowhere found in modern communities, it would be naive to imagine that wise deliberation can survive the constant pounding from self-interested political behavior. Benevolence in public institutions has a short half-life no matter how noble its original intentions." and "Once [a] program is in place, its day-to-day administration falls into the hands of a professional cadre besieged by powerful interest groups whose influence grows as public interest wanes. . . . A slow process of disintegration and reconfiguration sets in, transforming and expanding a program from within.
-- Richard A. Epstein		 
The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end.
-- Richard A. Epstein		 
It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum, to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meeting.
-- Equal Access Act		 
In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
-- Desiderius Erasmus		 
War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it.
-- Desiderius Erasmus		 
We will all be better citizens when voting records of our Congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games.
-- Lou Erickson		 
When somebody lies, somebody loses.
-- Stephanie Ericsson		 
The American feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them.
-- Erik H. Erikson		 
When men can freely communicate their thoughts and their sufferings, real or imagined, their passions spend themselves in air, like gunpowder scattered upon the surface – but pent up by terrors, they work unseen, burst forth in a moment, and destroy everything in its course. Let reason be opposed to reason, and argument to argument, and every good government will be safe.
-- Thomas Erskine		 
The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject, however, pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason.
-- Thomas Erskine		 
What is the fairest fruit of the English Tree of Liberty? The security of our rights and of the law, and that no man shall be brought to trial where there is a prejudice against him.
-- Thomas Erskine		 
A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.
-- Senator Sam Ervin		 
... judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of laws with a judicial oligarchy.
-- Senator Sam Ervin		 
But this is slavery, not to speak one’s thought.
-- Euripides		 
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-- Euripides		 
Once 'our people' get themselves into a position to make policy, they cease being 'our people'.
-- M. Stanton Evans		 
The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.
-- Bergan Evans		 
Freedom of speech and freedom of action [is meaningless] without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
-- Bergan Evans		 
Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them.
-- Harold Evans		 
Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace, or after ages of conflict and war; but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred.
-- Edward Everett		 
Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace, or after ages of conflict and war; but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred.
-- Edward Everett		 
The man who stands upon his own soil, who feels, by the laws of the land in which he lives,--by the laws of civilized nations,--he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, is, by the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome influence, not easily imbibed from any other source.
-- Edward Everett		 
[P]ublic schooling often ends up to be little more than majoritarian domination of minority viewpoints.
-- Robert B. Everhart		 
I gave my life for freedom--This I know; For those who bade me fight had told me so.
-- William Norman Ewer		 
The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect.
-- Sam Ewing		 
The information superhighway is a revolution that in years to come will transcend newspapers, radio, and television as an information source. Therefore, I think this is the time to put some restrictions on it.
-- Sen. James Exon		 
If you admit that to silence your opponent by force is to win an intellectual argument, then you admit the right to silence people by force.
-- Hans Eysenck		 
There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character.
-- Frederick W. Faber		 
It would be equally reasonable to say that sheep are born carnivorous, and everywhere nibble grass.
-- Emile Faguet		 
An anarchist is an uncomprimising liberal.
-- Émile Faguet		 
When dealing with a legal matter - always remember that you are your own best advocate. No one will care as much about the case as you do. Use lawyers but remember - you must take primary responsibility for a successful outcome.
-- Grant D. Fairley		 
The existing order is breaking down at a very rapid rate, and the main uncertainty is whether mankind can exert a positive role in shaping a new world order or is doomed to await collapse in a passive posture. We believe a new order will be born no later than early in the next century and that the death throes of the old and the birth pangs of the new will be a testing time for the human species.
-- Richard A. Falk		 
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.
-- Frantz Fanon		 
If you suppose that good intentions justify intruding on the lives and properties of your fellow citizens: Do you appreciate being the target of somebody else's good intentions, or haven't you had that particular dubious pleasure yet?
-- Cat Farmer		 
Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished.
-- Federal Farmer		 
The secret of all power is - save your force. If you want high pressure you must choke off waste.
-- Joseph Farrell		 
Putting free speech behind bars simply because it concerns prisoners sets a dangerous precedent. The court's decision makes clear that Arizona may not jail the Internet.
-- David Fathi		 
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
-- William Faulkner		 
What's wrong with this world is, it's not finished yet. It is not completed to the point where man can put his final signature to the job and say, "It is finished. We made it and it works.
-- William Faulkner		 


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