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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
-- William Hazlitt		 
The most fluent talkers or the most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.
-- William Hazlitt		 
Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice.
-- Hearst newspapers nationwide		 
We hold that the greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong, that in the exercise thereof people have an inviolable right to express their unbridled thoughts on all topics and personalities, being liable only for the use of that right.
-- William Randolph Hearst		 
Any man who has the brains to think and the nerve to act for the benefit of the people of the country is considered a radical by those who are content with stagnation and willing to endure disaster.
-- William Randolph Hearst		 
We hold that no person or set of persons can properly establish a standard of expression for others.
-- William Randolph Hearst		 
When free discussion is denied, hardening of the arteries of democracy has set in, free institutions are but a lifeless form, and the death of the republic is at hand.
-- William Randolph Hearst		 
Fraud may consist as well in the suppression of what is true as in the representation of what is false. If a man professing to answer a question, select those facts only which are likely to give a credit to the person of whom he speaks, and keep back the rest, he is a more artful knave than he who tells a direct falsehood.
-- Justice Heath		 
We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.
-- Chris Hedges		 
This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths.
-- Simon Heffer		 
When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel		 
The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel		 
Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel		 
What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel		 
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel		 
The present homeschooling laws are, at best, a poor compromise between a highly structured, two hundred billion dollar a year industry and the principles and beliefs of a handful of parents.
-- Helen Hegener		 
Our tightly controlled educational system mocks the promise of democracy. With a closed educational system we simply cannot have an open political system. The current situation allows the government and big business to manufacture and maintain our culture for us, and in turn, control remains in the hands of the experts and institutions. The ability to change this situation is in the hands of the individuals and families who understand why change is necessary.
-- Helen Hegener		 
All special charters of freedom must be abrogated where the universal law of freedom is to flourish.
-- Heinrich Heine		 
Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
-- Heinrich Heine		 
Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
-- Heinrich Heine		 
Freedom is a new religion, the religion of our time.
-- Heinrich Heine		 
The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: "It exists in spite of its ministers."
-- Heinrich Heine		 
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
The great trouble with religion – any religion – is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason – but one cannot have both.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
The human race divides itself politically into those who want to be controlled, and those who have no such desire.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
An armed society is a polite society.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously—after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
The whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is to never let them find out.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily.  All other "sins" are invented nonsense.  (Hurting yourself is not a sin - just stupid.)
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Love your country, but never trust its government.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Limiting the freedom of news ‘just a little bit’ is in the same category within the classic example ‘a little bit pregnant.’
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
...[A] fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
-- Robert A. Heinlein		 
There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.
-- Heisenberg		 
Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?
-- Lillian Hellman		 
A careful examination of what is happening behind the scenes reveals that all of these interests are working in concert with the masters of the Kremlin in order to create what some refer to as a “New World Order.” Private organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Trilateral Commission, the Dartmouth Conference, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Atlantic Institute, and the Bilderberg Group serve to disseminate and to coordinate the plans for this so-called new world order in powerful business, financial, academic, and official circles.
-- Jesse Helms		 
We are now considering legislation based on statistics that include name-calling at public rallies as crimes. Are we going on to the school yards of this country and when two kids get angry with each other and call each other names -- what are we going to do, cart them over to the reformatory or add them to the list of 'hate crimes' perpetrators? This is ridiculous.
-- Jesse Helms		 
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or knaves.
-- Claude-Adrien Helvetius		 
Everyone has his own conscience, and there should be no rules about how a conscience should function.
-- Ernest Hemingway		 
It is a sad reminder that many in the media are not interested in journalism but progressive advocacy.
-- Mollie Hemingway		 
Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit.
-- Robert Hemphill		 
If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.
-- Robert Hemphill		 
The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage.
-- Hazel Henderson		 
Satire dramatizes better than any other use of it, the inherent contradiction of free speech – that it functions best when what is being said is at its most outrageous.
-- Tony Hendra		 
Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don't need them and the bad people don't follow them so what good are they?
-- Ammon Hennacy		 
An anarchist is anyone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do.
-- Ammon Hennacy		 
Force is the weapon of the weak.
-- Ammon Hennacy		 
...The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to guarantee the existence of state military forces that can serve as a counterweight to a standing federal army. Thus, it seems fair to say, the scope of any rights enjoyed by the states under the 2nd Amendment would be determined by the goal of preserving an independent military force not under direct federal control.
-- Dennis Hennigan		 
I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.
-- Matthew Henry		 
There is no well-defined boundary between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other.
-- O. Henry		 
...Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed...so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.
-- Patrick Henry		 
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation of freemen. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
-- Patrick Henry		 
It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things, which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
-- Patrick Henry		 
Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry		 
I have the highest veneration of those Gentleman, -- but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of the confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one of great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States.
-- Patrick Henry		 
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
-- Patrick Henry (False)		 
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
-- Patrick Henry		 
The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.
-- Patrick Henry		 
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth... For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it.
-- Patrick Henry		 
Why do we love this trial by jury? Because it prevents the hand of oppression from cutting you off ... This gives me comfort—that, as long as I have existence, my neighbors will protect me.
-- Patrick Henry		 
Let Mr. Madison tell me when did liberty ever exist when the sword and the purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle shall interpose, no nation ever did, nor ever can retain its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse.
-- Patrick Henry		 
It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.
-- Patrick Henry		 


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