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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Good government is the most dangerous government, because it deprives people of the need to look after themselves.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 

-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Men ... should do their actual living and working in communities ... small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise. The larger (structurally) a democracy grows, the less becomes the rule of the people and the smaller is the say of individuals and localised groups in dealing with their own destinies. Moreover, love and affection, are essentially personal relationships. Consequently, it is only in small groups that Charity, in the Pauline sense of the word, can manifest itself. Needless to say, the smallness of the group, in no way guarantees the emergence of Charity. In a large undifferentiated group, the possibility does not even exist, for the simple reason that most of its members cannot, in the nature of things, have personal relations with one another.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
If we are to reach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. ... Freedom and slavery are mental states. Therefore, the first thing to say to yourself: 'I shall no longer accept the role of a slave. I shall not obey orders as such but shall disobey them when they are in conflict with my conscience'.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Live life simply so that others may simply live.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
I think it would be an excellent idea.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Honest differences are a healthy sign of progress.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Once one assumes an attitude of intolerance, there is no knowing where it will take one. Intolerance, someone has said, is violence to the intellect and hatred is violence to the heart.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
Courtesy towards opponents and eagerness to understand their view-point is the ABC of non-violence.
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi		 
The most fatal blow to progress is slavery of the intellect. The most sacred right of humanity is the right to think, and next to the right to think is the right to express that thought without fear.
-- Helen H. Gardner		 
It's difficult to view the world outside our human context. Staying alive and paying the bills both require our attention squarely fixed on our own business. Our sprawling cities and suburbs are wonderful and frightening tributes to creative self-absorption. In them, we spend our microscheduled days bustling between work and the endless details of our private lives, turning in our moments of rest to the buzzing distractions of television and computers - all accelerating toward some ultimate, unseen fulfillment of convenience and hyperreality. Little encourages us to pause and look around, much less question the end goal of all our busyness. Anything slower than the quick cuts of TV commercials is overwhelmed by our impatience and short attention. Unfortunately, we might be missing something important - to our happiness and to our survival.
-- Jason Gardner		 
Nothing can be more readily disproved than the old saw, "You can't keep a good man down." Most human societies have been beautifully organized to keep good men down.
-- John W. Gardner		 
In short, the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned assault...
-- Richard N. Gardner		 
The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept.
-- James A. Garfield		 
The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.
-- James A. Garfield		 
Liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality.
-- James A. Garfield		 
Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let every one know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.
-- James A. Garfield		 
I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.
-- James A. Garfield		 
The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept.
-- James A. Garfield		 
The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.
-- James A. Garfield		 
Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
-- James A. Garfield		 
Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.
-- James A. Garfield		 
By the experience of commercial nations in all ages it has been found that gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but I confidently believe that arrangements can be made between the leading commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals. Congress should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now required by law may not disturb our monetary system by driving either metal out of circulation. If possible, such an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world.
-- James A. Garfield		 
If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.
-- Stanley Garn		 
[W]hat suffers in the atmosphere of immediacy is analysis. What suffers in this search for speed is depth. The media in the wealthy world are becoming increasingly simplistic, superficial, and celebrity-focused.
-- Laurie Garrett		 
Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?
-- William Lloyd Garrison		 
Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.
-- William Lloyd Garrison		 
Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?
-- William Lloyd Garrison		 
No man shall rule over me with my consent. I will rule over no man.
-- William Lloyd Garrison		 
Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.
-- William Lloyd Garrison		 
There is no reason for anyone in this country, anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun. I used to think handguns could be controlled by laws about registration, by laws requiring waiting periods for purchasers, by laws making sellers check out the past of buyers. I now think the only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution.
-- Michael Gartner		 
Consider also the willy-nilly growth of the Social Security number. When the numbers were created in 1935, they were supposed to be used for one thing only, to record individual workers’ payments into the Social Security system. Eight years later, Franklin Roosevelt decided all new federal record-keeping would be based on the numbers. In 1962, the IRS adopted them as taxpayer identification numbers. And after Congress permitted states to use the numbers for welfare payments and driver’s licenses in 1976, they mushroomed: food stamps, school lunches, federal loans, even blood donations required Social Security numbers. These days it’s almost impossible to open a bank account or hook up your telephone without one.
-- Glenn Garvin		 
Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.
-- Robbie Gass		 
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
-- Daryl Gates		 
The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn’t real.
-- John Taylor Gatto		 
School is the first impression children get of organized society. Like most first impressions it is the lasting one. Life is dull and stupid, only Coke provides relief. And other products, too, of course.
-- John Taylor Gatto		 
Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents....
-- John Taylor Gatto		 
Growth and mastery come only to those who vigorously self-direct. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, freely associating, enjoying privacy—these are precisely what the structures of schooling are set up to prevent, on one pretext or another.
-- John Taylor Gatto		 
Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory.
-- John Taylor Gatto		 
If others would but reflect on mathematical truths as deeply and as continuously as I have, they would make my discoveries.
-- Carl Friedrich Gauss		 
Describing an action or an event as the "consequence" of speech presupposes that there is some causal connection between them. A central issue in any debate about the limits of free speech is the nature and the imminence of the causal connection between speech and its alleged consequences…. In actual social situations it is impossible to isolate factors and determine their contribution to effects. Such control is extremely complicated even in a scientific laboratory.
-- Ruth Gavison		 
My dear sir, let me tell you that every citizen has full legal right to arrest anyone whom he sees committing any criminal offense, big or little. The law of England and of this country has been very careful to confer no more right in that respect upon policemen and constables than it confers on every citizen. You have the same right to make an arrest for an offense committed in your presence that any policeman has. But we cannot all be bothering with making arrests, so we employ a certain number of our fellow citizens for that purpose and put blue clothes and brass buttons on them. But their clothes and their buttons add nothing whatever to their right to make arrests without warrant. They still have only the same right which the law gives to all of us. Be so good as to look at section 183 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and be convinced of your powers, and then sail right in as hard and as fast as you want to, being careful, however, only to arrest guilty persons, for otherwise your victims will turn around and sue you for damages for false arrest. Policemen have to face the same risk.
-- William Jay Gaynor		 
The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States... Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America.
-- Gazette of the United States		 
Since the federal constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced fifty percent. Our monied people can trust their cash abroad, and have brought their coin into circulation.
-- The Pennsylvania Gazette		 
The most efficacious method of dealing with deviancy is to ignore, to the furthest point of our tolerance, those items which we find offensive.
-- Ilbert Geis		 
Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun.
-- Jean Genet		 
Tax limits, or fiscal constraints generally, can be expected to curb government's appetites to the extent that the utility function of governmental decision makers contains arguments for privately enjoyable 'creature comforts,' for final end items of consumption. Such constraints become much less effective, and may well be evaded, if the motive force behind governmental action is 'do-goodism.' The licentious sinners we can control; the saintly ascetics may destroy us.
-- Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan		 
Knavery seems to be so much the striking feature of its [America's] inhabitants that it may not in the end be an evil that they will become aliens to the kingdom.
-- King George III		 
O freedom, what liberties are taken in thy name!
-- Daniel George		 
Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.
-- David Lloyd George		 
Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite; who made ten thousand people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?
-- David Lloyd George		 
Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.
-- Henry George		 
Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.
-- Henry George		 
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
-- Henry George		 
If I have worked harder and built myself a good house while you have been content to live in a hovel, the tax gatherer now comes annually to make me pay a penalty for my energy and industry by taxing me more than you. If I have saved while you wasted, I am [taxed] while you are exempt. If a man built a ship, we make him pay for his temerity as though he had done injury to the state; if a railroad be opened, down comes the tax collector upon it as though were a public nuisance.... We punish with a tax the man who covers barren fields with ripening grain; we fine him who puts up machinery and him who drains a swamp. To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole enormous weight of taxation from productive industry.... The state would say to the producer, “Be as industrious, as thrifty, as enterprising as you choose. You shall have your full reward!”
-- Henry George		 
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
-- Henry George		 
He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.
-- Henry George		 
He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.
-- Henry George		 
Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.
-- W. L. George		 
[T]he jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts in the trial of all criminal cases and shall give a general verdict of “guilty,” or “not guilty.”
-- Georgia Code		 


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