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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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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		 
[That] the Jury may determine the law and the fact of the case, has been supported by every English judge, except Chief Justice Jeffries .... And to their credit be it spoken that the Juries have always been right on fundamental questions of liberty and popular right.
-- Georgia Supreme Court		 
[T]he Jury have not only the power, but the right, to pass upon the law as well as the facts...
-- Georgia Supreme Court		 
The jury in all criminal cases, shall be the judges of the law and the facts.
-- Georgia, Declaration of Rights		 
We can see beyond the present shadow of war in the Middle East to a new world order where the strong work together to deter and stop aggression. This was precisely Franklin Roosevelt's and Winston Churchill's vision for peace in the post-war period.
-- Richard Gephardt		 
Historically, the United States has been a hard money country. Only [since 1913] has the United States operated on a fiat money system. During this period, paper money has depreciated over 87%. During the preceding 140 year period, the hard currency of the United States had actually maintained its value. Wholesale prices in 1913... were the same as in 1787.
-- Kenneth Gerbino		 
It is the paper money created out of thin air that creates the unfair distribution of wealth that is making the middle class fall more behind and the poor more poor. Newly created money and credit in a paper money system benefits those that can access the money first and buy capital goods and real property at one price before the new money circulates and makes all prices go up. Wages also do not keep up with inflation and that creates another squeeze on the middle class.
-- Kenneth Gerbino		 
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
-- Anne Louise Germaine de Stael		 
One does evil enough when one does nothing good.
-- German Proverb		 
All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.
-- Katherine Fullerton Gerould		 
The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.
-- Elbridge Gerry		 
Mr. Gerry contended that (the power of the Federal government to purchase lands within states) might be made use of to enslave any particular State by buying up its territory, and that the strongholds proposed would be a means of awing the State into an undue obedience to the Genl. Government...thus after the word ‘purchased’ the words ‘by the consent of the Legislature of the State’ (was added to the Enclave Clause).
-- Elbridge Gerry		 
What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. ...Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
-- Elbridge Gerry		 
After a generation of marijuana arrests, nearly 19 million and counting since 1981, the results are that marijuana remains widely used, not perceived as risky by a majority of the population, and widely available. The tremendous variance in use and arrests at the state level demonstrate why marijuana prohibition has failed and is not a viable national policy.
-- Jon Gettman		 
The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.
-- J. Paul Getty		 
An idea is growing in foreign policy circles in Washington … that there is no turning back. We are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for 25 to 40 years, we are embedded in our prideful unilateralism, and nothing can return us to more traditional American values and principles of action. The hubristic creators of this “inevitability” planned it this way. … Their failures in Iraq have not stopped the fanatic, power-hungry neoconservatives. … The hard-liners who dominate this administration … have led us to eternal conflict with Muslims.
-- Georgie Anne Geyer		 
Freedom is an intellectual achievement which requires disavowal of collectivism and embrace of individualism.
-- Onkar Ghate		 
Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.
-- A. Bartlett Giamatti		 
The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprise of an aspiring prince.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
-- Edward Gibbon		 
Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited.
-- James Cardinal Gibbons		 
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
Do not be merciful, but be just, for mercy is bestowed upon the guilty criminal, while Justice is all that the innocent man requires.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
Some who are too scrupulous to steal your possessions nevertheless see no wrong in tampering with your thoughts.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
-- Khalil Gibran		 
If it’s a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth or duty.
-- Khalil Gibran		 
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
-- Andre Gide		 
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
-- Andre Gide		 
Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.
-- Andre Gide		 
Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.
-- Andre Gide		 
One man can completely change the character of a country, and the industry of its people, by dropping a single seed in fertile soil.
-- John C. Gifford		 
Indeed, the ABA [American Bar Association] is truly a creature of these post-modern times. Its governing members view the political sphere and judicial sphere as one in the same, and worship raw power as the ultimate and only currency in social transactions. The modern ABA thus has embraced an ideology that views the rule of law as a mere extension of politics, and in a self-fulfilling confirmation of that view, conflates law and politics with unashamedly liberal policy prescriptions.
-- Ray Gifford		 
The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state.
-- George Gilder		 
If government could create jobs and raise children, socialism would have worked.
-- Gerald Gilder		 
Liberty is worth whatever the country is worth. It is by liberty that man has a country; it is by liberty he has rights.
-- Henry Giles		 
Liberty is worth whatever the best civilization is worth.
-- Henry Giles		 
Not until right is founded upon reverence will it be secure; not until duty is based upon love will it be complete; not until liberty is based on eternal principles will it be full, equal, lofty, and universal.
-- Henry Giles		 
[It is not the purpose nor right of Congress] to attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require.
-- William Branch Giles		 
The First Amendment is important not only to guarantee the rights of alternative religions and of nonreligious persons in society; it is also important in setting the only possible legal and social condition for the creative health of serious religion itself.
-- Langdon Gilkey		 
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
-- Brendan Gill		 
The one predominant duty is to find one's work and do it.
-- Charlotte Perkins Gilman		 
Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death.
-- John Gilmore		 
If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral.
-- Samuel P. Ginder		 
If I resign any time this year, he [President Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court. ... [A]nybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided.
-- Ruth Bader Ginsburg		 
The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn’t provide access, another state does. ... It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.
-- Ruth Bader Ginsburg		 
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.
-- Ruth Bader Ginsburg		 
In the name of peace They waged the wars Ain't they got no shame
-- Nikki Giovanni		 
Humanity's most valuable assets have been the non-conformists. Were it not for the non-conformists, he who refuses to be satisfied to go along with the continuance of things as they are, and insists upon attempting to find new ways of bettering things, the world would have known little progress, indeed.
-- Josiah William Gitt		 
What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
-- Rudolph W. Giuliani		 
National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.
-- William E. Gladstone		 
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
-- Ellen Glasgow		 
Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to.
-- Arnold H. Glasow		 
Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including the merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?
-- Senator Carter Glass		 
Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?
-- Senator Carter Glass		 
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
-- William Glasser		 
Why, if we had to do that we could not pass most of the laws we enact around here... Americans just want us to solve America's problems of health and safety -- and not be concerned if they can be constitutionally justified.
-- Sen. John Glenn		 
I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money.
-- Arthur Godfrey		 
A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.
-- Jo Godwin		 
The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.
-- Mike Godwin		 
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
-- William Godwin		 
Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
-- William Godwin		 
Government will not fail to employ education to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
-- William Godwin		 
Bred in the lap of Republican Freedom.
-- William Godwin		 
To dragoon man into the adoption of what we think right, is an intolerable tyranny.
-- William Godwin		 
Let us consider the effect that coercion produces upon the mind of him against whom it is employed. It cannot begin with convincing; it is no argument. It begins with producing the sensation of pain, and the sentiment of distaste. It begins with violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to be impressed. It includes in it a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is important, but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.
-- William Godwin		 
To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
The war made possible for us the solution of a whole series of problems that could never have been solved in normal times.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
As socialists, we are opponents of the Jews, because we see, in the Hebrews, the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
We are not a charitable institution but a Party of revolutionary socialists.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
We are a workers’ party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance ... The value of labor under socialism will be determined by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means creating value, not haggling over things.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 
The money pigs of capitalist democracy… Money has made slaves of us… Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.
-- Joseph Paul Goebbels		 


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