Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
I have been told I was on the road to hell, but I had no idea it was just a mile down the road with a Dome on it.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
[I]f the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln (False)		 
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Ballots are the rightful, and peaceful, successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no successful appeal, back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.
-- Abraham Lincoln (Questionable)		 
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Let it [the Constitution] be taught in schools, seminaries and in colleges; let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, enforced in courts of justice. In short, let it become the political religion of the nation.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The Shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shephard as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as a destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Nearly all men can withstand adversity; if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. By adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Military glory -- the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war
-- Abraham Lincoln (Questionable)		 
Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy hypocrisy.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Where slavery is, there liberty cannot be; and where liberty is, there slavery cannot be.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
... the privilege of creating and issuing money... is the government's greatest creative opportunity... [saving] the taxpayers immense sums of money...
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time...
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from ... the Declaration of Independence ... that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence ... I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.
-- Abraham Lincoln		 
What chance of survival does a culture have when its own elites actively seek its destruction?
-- William S. Lind		 
The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh		 
Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh		 
This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts will soon realize that they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress... The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government.
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.		 
When the President signs this act [Federal Reserve Act of 1913], the invisible government by the money power -- proven to exist by the Monetary Trust Investigation -- will be legalized. The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.		 
A radical is one who speaks the truth.
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.		 
This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson) signs the Bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalised... The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency Bill.
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.		 
The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation...they can unload the stocks on the people at high prices during the excitement and then bring on a panic and buy them back at low prices...the day of reckoning is only a few years removed.
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.		 
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
-- Robert Lindner		 
There are men – now in power in this country – who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.
-- John V. Lindsay		 
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.
-- John V. Lindsay		 
Paradoxical as it may seem, men and women who are free to pursue individualism and material wealth turn out to be the most compassionate of all.
-- Lawrence Lindsey		 
Contemporary liberals increasingly think and talk like a class of self-satisfied commissars enforcing a comprehensive, uniformly secular vision of the human good. The idea that someone, somewhere might devote her life to an alternative vision of the good -- one that clashes in some respects with liberalism's moral creed -- is increasingly intolerable. That is a betrayal of what's best in the liberal tradition.
-- Damon Linker		 
Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting ‘the free discussion of governmental affairs.’
-- Judge Kermit Victor Lipez		 
The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative.
-- Judge Kermit Victor Lipez		 
It is perfectly true that the government is best which governs least. It is equally true that the government is best which provides most.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes that right important.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
It is the very essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail. This is what distinguishes it most vitally from democracy. In a despotism there is no organized opposition which can take over the power when the Administration in office has failed. All the eggs are in one basket. Everything is staked on one coterie of men. When the going is good, they move more quickly and efficiently than democracies, where the opposition has to be persuaded and conciliated. But when they lose, there are no reserves. There are no substitutes on the bench ready to go out on the field and carry the ball. That is why democracies with the habit of party government have outlived all other forms of government in the modern world. They have, as it were, at least two governments always at hand, and when one fails they have the other. They have diversified the risks of mortality, corruption, and stupidity which pervade all human affairs. They have remembered that the most beautifully impressive machine cannot run for very long unless there is available a complete supply of spare parts.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
The opposition is indispensable. A good statesmen, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve truth.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a revolutionary movement; usually a regime collapses of its own weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have become vacant.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
The American’s conviction that he must be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell is the very essence of the free man’s way of life.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes the right important.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
-- Walter Lippmann		 
When you get into politics, you find that all your worst nightmares about it turn out to be true, and the people who are attracted to large concentrations of power are precisely the ones who should be kept as far away from it as possible.
-- Ken Livingstone		 
Prosperity or egalitarianism – you have to choose. I favor freedom – you never achieve real equality anyway, you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.
-- Marios Vargas Llosa		 
Public educators, like Soviet farmers, lack any incentive to produce results, innovate, to be efficient, to make the kinds of difficult changes that private firms operating in a competitive market must make to survive.
-- Carolyn Lochhead		 
To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
-- John Locke		 
[W]henever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.
-- John Locke		 
Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.
-- John Locke		 
The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.
-- John Locke		 
[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.
-- John Locke		 
Government has no other end than the preservation of property.
-- John Locke		 
If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.
-- John Locke		 
Where there is no law there is no freedom.
-- John Locke		 
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
-- John Locke		 
All wealth is the product of labor.
-- John Locke		 


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