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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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It is a part of the function of “law” to give recognition to ideas representing the exact opposite of established conduct. Most of the complications arise from the necessity of pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another.
-- Thurman Arnold		 
The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy.
-- Thurman Arnold		 
[The US has] developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called ‘business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called ‘government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine.
-- Thurman Arnold		 
If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare.
-- William D. Arnot		 
Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy?
-- Stephen Arons		 
To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends.
-- John Ashcroft		 
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others, at whatever cost.
-- Arthur Ashe		 
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
-- Isaac Asimov		 
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
-- Isaac Asimov		 
Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’
-- Isaac Asimov		 
Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’
-- Isaac Asimov		 
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right.
-- Isaac Asimov		 
If living conditions don't stop improving in this country, we're going to run out of humble beginnings for our great men.
-- Russell P. Askue		 
What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.
-- Margot Asquith		 
'Parent choice' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. 'Family choice' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the 'wants' of a single family rather than the 'needs' of society.
-- Association of California School Administrators		 
The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.
-- Assyrian Tablet		 
Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
-- Nancy Astor		 
1. Our military is supposed to be a means to an end: national security.  Due to its immense size and colossal budget, has our military not become an end as well as a means? 2. In World War II, Americans could explain “Why We Fight” in part because the government provided a clear and compelling rationale for war.  Why are the goals of today’s wars so opaque to most Americans? 3. If our military provides us with our way of “nation building” abroad, won’t countries and peoples be more likely to copy our military ways and weaponry than our democratic teachings?  4. America is facing painful budgetary belt tightening.  Why is the military immune? 5. Why does “support our troops” seemingly end when they leave the service, leading us to tolerate such inequities as an unemployment rate of 21% for young veterans?
-- William J. Astore		 
When it comes to our nation's military affairs, ignorance is not bliss.  What's remarkable then, given the permanent state of war in which we find ourselves, is how many Americans seem content not to know.
-- William J. Astore		 
It's true that the world is a dangerous place. The problem is that the Pentagon is part of that danger. Our military has grown so strong and so dominates our government, including its foreign policy and even aspects of our culture, that there's no effective counterweight to its closeted, conflict-centered style of thinking.
-- William J. Astore		 
If some people had wings and others didn't, and the government wanted to enforce "fairness," soon no one would have wings. Because wings cannot be redistributed, they can only be broken. Likewise, a government edict cannot make people smarter or more capable, but it can impede the growth of those with the potential. Wouldn't it be fair if, in the name of equality, we scar the beautiful, cripple the athletes, lobotomize the scientists, blind the artists, and sever the hands of the musicians? Why not?
-- Oleg Atbashian		 
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
-- Clement Atlee		 
The use of “religion” as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.
-- Margaret Atwood		 
Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.
-- W. H. Auden		 
Liberty is from God; liberties, from the devil.
-- Berthold Auerbach		 
Near our vineyard there was a pear tree laden with fruit that was not attractive in either flavor or form. One night, when I [at the age of sixteen] had played until dark on the sandlot with some other juvenile delinquents, we went to shake that tree and carry off its fruit. From it we carried off huge loads, not to feast on, but to throw to the pigs, although we did eat a few ourselves. We did it just because it was forbidden.
-- Saint Augustine		 
An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. “What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”
-- Saint Augustine		 
Give me chastity and self-restraint, but do not give it yet.
-- Saint Augustine		 
Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.
-- St. Augustine		 
Put no faith in salvation through the political order.
-- Augustine of Hippo		 
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
-- Caesar Augustus		 
The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear.
-- Aung San Suu Kyi		 
Life is a banquet - and most poor suckers are starving.
-- Auntie Mame		 
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
-- Marcus Aurelius		 
The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.
-- Marcus Aurelius		 
He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything which has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time without end; for all things are of one kin and of one form.
-- Marcus Aurelius		 
Once the government becomes the supplier of people's needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right.
-- Lawrence Auster		 
Let me point this out now. Your income tax is 100 percent voluntary tax, and your liquor tax is 100 percent enforced tax. Now, the situation is as different as night and day. Consequently, your same rules just will not apply...
-- Dwight E. Avis		 
The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war.
-- Bill Ayers		 
The whole subject of civilians carrying guns for self defense is discussed too much in the wrong places -- ACLU cocktail parties, gun club gatherings -- all placid atmospheres far removed from the terrifying reality of violent confrontation with the lawless. It should be discussed in prisons, where professional criminals are remarkably candid about their avoidance of armed citizens who can fight back. It should be discussed in rape crises centers. Ask a woman who has been raped, whether she ever wished she had a gun when it happened ... and whether she had bought one since. Her reply is likely to be “yes” to at least the first, and often to both. Talk to the bereaved who lost their loved ones to the streets. Talk to those who have been violated in their homes. Ask them how they feel about passive non-resistance. And when you have attuned yourself to the haunting fear that lives with them forever after their nightmare, you will be ready to talk with someone else who was in their place, but survived unscathed because they were armed. The contrast will be striking. These survivors don’t put notches on their pistols, and they don’t brag about what they had to do... The taking of a human life, no matter what the circumstances, is an unnatural act, an emotionally shattering experience that leaves its own scars forever. But none of those people regret what they did, and to a man, their first reaction was to go home to their wife and children and hug them, tightly and wordlessly.
-- Massad Ayoob		 
Aside from the most committed libertarians, few Americans would list a lack of freedom in their lives as their most pressing concern. That is not to deny that militant leftism, the administrative state, and the imperial judiciary threaten liberty—they most emphatically do. Nor is it to argue that conservatives should not care for liberty. Rather it is to recognize that the average American, including the average Republican voter, is not a libertarian, has come to expect quite a lot from the federal government, and cares as much, if not more, about security than liberty (or opportunity for that matter, unless he is young and on the make).
-- David Azerrad		 
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.
-- Richard Bach		 
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
-- Richard Bach		 
All governments are more or less combinations against the people...and as rulers have no more virtue than the ruled...the power of government can only be kept within its constituted bounds by the display of a power equal to itself, the collected sentiment of the people.
-- Benjamin Franklin Bache		 
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
-- Francis Bacon		 
Men prefer to believe what they prefer to be true.
-- Francis Bacon		 
So when any of the four pillars of government, are mainly shaken, or weakened (which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure), men had need to pray for fair weather.
-- Francis Bacon		 
Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, 'It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.'
-- Francis Bacon		 
...for that nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise.
-- Francis Bacon		 
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
-- Francis Bacon		 
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
-- Francis Bacon		 
For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
Knowledge is power.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they see nothing but sea.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
-- Sir Francis Bacon		 
There are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
-- Roger Bacon		 
Allow me to dispel a myth. People in the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our lifestyle. They hate us because we have spent many years attempting to force them to emulate our lifestyle. The US government overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran and replaced him with the Shah. The US government gave weapons, intelligence and money to Saddam Hussein. The US government also helped Libyan Col. Qaddafi come to power, propped up the Saudi monarchy and the Egyptian regime, and gave assistance to Osama bin Laden. Most Americans have forgotten these events. But the people of the Middle East will always remember. It was because of American troops in Saudi Arabia, lethal sanctions on Iraq, support for states in serious violation of International Law, and siding with Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians that terrorist leaders were able to recruit those individuals who caused 3,000 Americans to pay the ultimate price on September 11, 2001.
-- Michael Badnarik		 
How bad do things have to get before you do something? Do they have to take away all your property? Do they have to license every activity that you want to engage in? Do they have to start throwing you on cattle cars before you say “now wait a minute, I don’t think this is a good idea.” How long is it going to be before you finally resist and say “No, I will not comply. Period!” Ask yourself now because sooner or later you are going to come to that line, and when they cross it, you’re going to say well now cross this line; ok now cross that line; ok now cross this line. Pretty soon you’re in a corner. Sooner or later you’ve got to stand your ground whether anybody else does or not. That is what liberty is all about.
-- Michael Badnarik		 
The Democrats and Republicans stand at two extremes, characterized by which parts of our lives they emphasize their desire to control.  Libertarians reject both extremes in favor of the government leaving control of your life to you.
-- Michael Badnarik		 
I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest." This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland.
-- Michael Badnarik		 
If I give you a forty five percent chance at lethal injection, a fifty percent chance at the electric chair, and a five percent chance for escape which are you going to vote for? The electric chair, because you're likely to win?
-- Michael Badnarik		 
Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment.
-- Ben H. Bagdikian		 
In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then. Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification. No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate.
-- Ben H. Bagdikian		 
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong.
-- Walter Bagehot		 
A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
-- Walter Bagehot		 
The cardinal maxim is, that any aid to a present bad Bank is the surest mode of preventing the establishment of a future good Bank.
-- Walter Bagehot		 
Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
-- Walter Bagehot		 
The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.
-- Carl Friedrich Bahrdt		 
Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee.
-- F. Lee Bailey		 
The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
-- Gil Bailie		 
The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination.
-- Robert Baird		 
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
-- Russell Baker		 
The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation -- which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.
-- Mikhail Bakunin		 
Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery.
-- Mikhail A. Bakunin		 
The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights.
-- Mikhail A. Bakunin		 
Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.
-- Mikhail A. Bakunin		 
Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
-- Mikhail A. Bakunin		 
Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
-- James Baldwin		 
Freedom is not something that can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
-- James Baldwin		 
The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
-- James Baldwin		 
I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself. … Communism is the goal.
-- Roger Baldwin		 
I joined. I don’t regret being a part of the Communist tactic, which increased the effectiveness of a good cause. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the Communists wanted.
-- Roger Baldwin		 
The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological “atmosphere” or “climate” favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others.
-- Arthur Balfour		 
In fact, the big corporations who understand the regulatory game can actually benefit from it. They can lobby for expensive regulations only the largest corporations can afford, effectively keeping upstarts and competitors at bay.
-- Radley Balko		 
Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way.
-- Hosea Ballou		 
The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.
-- Hosea Ballou		 
Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States.
-- George Bancroft		 
Gun control has proved to be a grievous failure, a means of disarming honest citizens without limiting firepower available to those who prey on the law-abiding. Attempting to use the legal system to punish the weapon rather than the person misusing the weapon is similarly doomed to fail.
-- Doug Bandow		 
[E]conomic liberty and creative entrepreneurship are the basis of any solution to today’s social and economic difficulties. Blaming business, setting wages, and attempting to run the economy by decree from Washington only exacerbates the problems. Consider the minimum wage. It seems so simple: Tell business to pay its workers more. But a hike in the minimum wage is essentially a tax, punishing precisely those companies that hire workers with the least skills.
-- Doug Bandow		 
[R]eal charity doesn’t mean giving away someone else’s money.
-- Doug Bandow		 
Being paid by the government to shelve books in a library, whether as an employee or as an Americorps member, is no more laudable or valuable than being paid by Crown Books to stock bookshelves in a bookstore. A host of private-sector jobs provide enormous public benefits—consider health care professionals, medical and scientific researchers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists. Many of these people earn less than they could in alternative work; they have chosen to serve in their own way. Yet government programs that equate public employment with service to society effectively denigrate service through private employment.
-- Doug Bandow		 


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