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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurence of the improbable.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Judge: a law student who marks his own papers.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that is precisely the kind that we mainly have.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
-- H. L. Mencken		 
The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.
-- Dr. Joseph Mengele		 
We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to.
-- Karl A. Menninger		 
We can't constantly explain to our voters that taxpayers have to be on the hook for certain risks, rather than those who make a lot of money taking those risks.
-- Angela Merkel		 
Psychologically, it is important to understand that the simple fact of being interviewed and investigated has a coercive influence. As soon as a man is under cross-examination, he may become paralyzed by the procedure and find himself confessing to deeds he never did. In a country where the urge to investigate spreads, suspicion and insecurity grow.
-- Joost A. Merloo		 
Pretty soon, there will not be any debate in this city about overcrowded prisons. AIDS will take care of that.
-- Mario Merola		 
May God prevent us from becoming 'right-thinking men' -- that is to say, men who agree perfectly with their own police.
-- Thomas Merton		 
I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. If modern people were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of their absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be the possibility of their survival.
-- Thomas Merton		 
The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there will be no sins because all the sinners have been wiped out.
-- Thomas Merton		 
What good does it do to ban some guns. All guns should be banned.
-- Howard Metzenbaum		 
The ideal type of the Communist is a man in whom all individual, emotional, and unconscious elements have been reduced to a minimum and subjected to the control of an iron will, informed by a supple intellect. That intellect is totally at the service of a single and compelling idea, made incarnate in the Communist Party: the concept of History as an inexorable god whose ways are revealed ‘scientifically’ through the doctrine and method of Marxism-Leninism.
-- Frank Straus Meyer		 
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
-- Michelangelo		 
Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
-- Michelangelo		 
The historian’s first duties are sacrilege and the mocking of false gods. They are his indispensable instruments for establishing the truth.
-- Jules Michelet		 
While the legislature has power, in the most comprehensive manner, to regulate the carrying and use of firearms, it has no power to constitute it a crime for a person, alien or citizen, to possess a revolver for the legitimate defense of himself and his property, said right being expressly granted by section 5, art. 2, of the State Constitution, to every person.
-- Michigan Supreme Court		 
[Legislation] cannot constitutionally result in the prohibition of the possession of those arms which, by the common opinion and usage of law-abiding people, are proper and legitimate to be kept upon private premises for the protection of person and property.
-- Michigan Supreme Court		 
Religious liberty is primarily a man’s liberty to profess a faith different from that of the dominant religion, and to unite in public worship with those who share his faith.
-- Giovanni Miegge		 
I did not come here to guide lambs. I came here to awaken lions.
-- Javier Milei		 
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
-- James D. Miles		 
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. ... Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
If any opinion be compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that person that he, if he had the power, would be in silencing mankind… If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
There is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions... The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The only freedom deserving the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
In its narrowest acceptation, order means obedience. A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands -- even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
-- John Stuart Mill		 
Let us forget such words, and all they mean, as Hatred, Bitterness and Rancor, Greed, Intolerance, Bigotry. Let us renew our faith and pledge to Man, his right to be Himself, and free.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay		 
The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.
-- Arthur Miller		 
Those who formally rule take their signals and commands not from the electorate as a body, but from a small group of men. This group will be called the Establishment. It exists even though that existence is stoutly denied. It is one of the secrets of the American social order... A second secret is the fact that the existence of the Establishment - the ruling class - is not supposed to be discussed.
-- Arthur S. Miller		 
Those who formally rule take their signals and commands not from the electorate as a body, but from a small group of men (plus a few women). This group will be called the Establishment. It exists even though that existence is stoutly denied. It is one of the secrets of the American social order. ... A second secret is the fact that the existence of the Establishment -- the ruling class -- is not supposed to be discussed.
-- Arthur S. Miller		 
This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.
-- Sir Denison Miller		 
The biggest conspiracy has always been the fact that there is no conspiracy. Nobody's out to get you. Nobody gives a shit whether you live or die. There, you feel better now?
-- Dennis Miller		 
No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance.
-- Henry Miller		 
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.
-- Henry Miller		 
The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.
-- Henry Miller		 
Laws do not curb the lawless. After all, that's why we call them 'lawless.'
-- Joel Miller		 
What we have to remember is that not everything is under our control. If people are free in any meaningful sense of the word, that means they are at liberty to foul up their lives as much as make something grand of them. That's a gamble we all take. That's the risk of liberty. Nobody wants others to screw up their lives, but each must be free to do so for themselves.
-- Joel Miller		 
Far from a simple attempt to rid the nation of crime and drugs, our policy against narcotics -- like any public policy -- comes with strings attached. And increasingly these strings are constricting around the necks of Americans' lives and liberties.
-- Joel Miller		 
To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
-- Olin Miller		 
And let us remind readers regularly, in editorials, in our promotional advertising, in speeches to civic groups and others, that advertising helps people to live better and saves them money. This fact needs constant selling.
-- Paul Miller		 
The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime.
-- Miller v. U.S.		 
Welcome to the U.S. Capitol: Watch for falling expectations.
-- Wiley Miller		 
You won't find average Americans on the left or on the right. You'll find them at Kmart.
-- Zell Miller		 
The government of the world was [Cecil] Rhodes' simple desire.
-- Sarah Gertrude Millin		 
Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.
-- C. Wright Mills		 
Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.
-- C. Wright Mills		 
If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you will do will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell.
-- C. Wright Mills		 


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