Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Eight decades of amendments... to (the) code have produced a virtually impenetrable maze... The rules are unintelligible to most citizens... The rules are equally mysterious to many government employees who are charged with administering and enforcing the law.
-- Shirley Peterson		 
If oppression and wrong should gain the ascendancy, and injustice stalk abroad in the land, and all else fail him; nevertheless his humblest roof, and all things that are sheltered beneath it, would find, somehow, someway, a final refuge and protection in the Supreme Court of the United States.
-- Edward J. Phelps		 
A large body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? ... I maintain on the principles of '76 that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. ... You can never make such a war popular. ... The North never will endorse such a war.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
No matter whose lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can’t stand discussion, let it crack.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
-- Wendell Phillips		 
Money, it has been said, is the cause of good things to a good man, of evil things to a bad man.
-- Philo of Alexandria		 
A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself.
-- Francis Picabia		 
Art is an instrument in the war against the enemy.
-- Pablo Picasso		 
All the progress we have made in philosophy… is the result of that methodical skepticism which is the element of human freedom.
-- Charles S. Pierce		 
Every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with an allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our founding fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government that we have. Patriotism, nationalism, and sovereignty, all that proves that children are sick because a truly well individual is one who has rejected all of those things, and is truly the international child of the future.
-- Dr. Chester Pierce		 
I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity, ... [it] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
-- Franklin Pierce		 
The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.
-- Franklin Pierce		 
The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those … who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
-- Franklin Pierce		 
Socialism is after all, the Viagra of politics...
-- Michael Pierce		 
Congress has doubled the IRS budget over the past 10 years -- making that agency one of the fastest growing non-entitlement programs. It has increased its employment by 20 percent. The IRS’s powers to investigate and examine taxpayers transcend those of any other law enforcement agency. Virtually all of the constitutional rights regarding search and seizure, due process, and jury trial simply do not apply to the IRS.
-- Daniel Pilla		 
Today, of course, the redistributive powers of Congress are everywhere -- except in the Constitution. The result is the feeding frenzy that is modern Washington, the Hobbesian war of all against all as each tries to get his share and more of the common pot the tax system fills. ... It is unseemly and wrong. More than that, it is unconstitutional, whatever the slim and cowed majority on the New Deal Court may have said.
-- Roger Pilon		 
The growth of federal power and programs over this century -- involving the regulation of business, the expansion of "civil rights," the production of environmental goods, and much else -- has taken place in large measure through the power of Congress to regulate "commerce among the states." That power has been read so broadly by the modern Court that Congress today can regulate anything that even "affects" commerce, which in principle is everything. As a result, save for the restraints imposed by the Bill of Rights, the commerce power is now essentially plenary, which is hardly what the Framers intended when they enumerated Congress’s powers. Indeed, if they had meant for Congress to be able to do anything it wanted under the commerce power, the enumeration of Congress’s other powers -- to say nothing of the defense of the doctrine of enumerated powers throughout the Federalist Papers -- would have been pointless. The purpose of the commerce clause quite simply, was to enable Congress to ensure the free flow of commerce among the states. Under the Articles of Confederation, state legislatures had enacted tariffs and other protectionist measures that impeded interstate commerce. To break the logjam, Congress was empowered to make commerce among the states "regular." In fact, the need to do so was one of the principal reasons behind the call for a new constitution.
-- Roger Pilon		 
Indeed, it was the enumeration of powers, not the enumeration of rights in the Bill of Rights, that was meant by the Framers to be the principal limitation on government power.
-- Roger Pilon		 
Over the 20th century, the federal government has assumed a vast and unprecedented set of powers. Not only has the exercise of those powers upset the balance between federal and state governments; run roughshod over individuals, families, and firms; and reduced economic opportunity for all; but most of what the federal government does today -- to put the point as plainly and candidly as possible -- is illegitimate because done without explicit constitutional authority. The time has come to start returning power to the states and the people, to relimit federal power in our fundamental law, to restore constitutional government.
-- Roger Pilon		 
Unfortunately, over the course of this century Congress has largely ignored the constitutional limits on its power. And the courts, especially after Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court with six additional members, have only abetted the resulting growth of government by fashioning constitutional doctrines that have no basis whatever in the Constitution. As a consequence, many of the programs Congress oversees today are without constitutional foundation, having resulted from acts that Congress had no authority.
-- Roger Pilon		 
[T]he vast regulatory structure the federal government has erected in the name of the commerce power cannot be ended overnight, in many cases, but the pretense that such programs are constitutional can be ended, even as the programs themselves are phased out over time.
-- Roger Pilon		 
Under our Constitution, the federal government has delegated, enumerated and thus limited powers. Power is delegated by the founding generation or through subsequent amendment (that makes it legitimate); enumerated in the constitution (that makes it legal); and limited by that enumeration. As the 10th Amendment says, if a power hasn’t been delegated, the federal government doesn’t have it. For 150 years, that design held for the most part. When faced with a welfare bill in 1794, for example, James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, rose in the House to say that he could find no constitutional authority for the bill. A century later, when Congress passed a similar measure, President Cleveland vetoed it as beyond Congress’ authority. That all changed during the New Deal as both congress and the president sought to expand federal power. When the Supreme court objected, rather than amend the Constitution, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court with six additional members. The scheme failed, but the threat worked. Thereafter, the court started reading the Constitution’s General Welfare and Commerce Clauses so broadly that the doctrine of enumerated powers was essentially destroyed—and with it limited government.
-- Roger Pilon		 
The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press.
-- Charles Pinckney		 
Sept. 9, 2004, will be remembered as a paradigm-shifting day in media history. That was the day the 'blogosphere' took down CBS News.
-- James Pinkerton		 
Honesty demands that we boldly pursue ideas tested by time, defended by reason, validated by experience, and confirmed by revelation. We will only find truth when we place our confidence in it and not in ourselves. We will only learn when we love truth enough to measure all ideas with a measuring rod outside of those things being measured and are willing to discard those ideas we find to be "intolerable," inferior, and useless.
-- Everett Piper		 
History has taught us time and again that political power always raises its angry fist when timeless principles are lost. We know that without the scale of "self-evident truths" grounded in the "laws of nature and nature's God," every culture eventually finds itself subject to the rule of the gang or the tyranny of the individual. Recognizing this, scholars of all ages have confidently given their hearts and minds to the words, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
-- Everett Piper		 
Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.
-- H. Beam Piper		 
The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.
-- William Pitt		 
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-- William Pitt		 
Unlimited Power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.
-- William Pitt, Sr.		 
Henceforth it will be the task of this Sacred Congregation not only to examine carefully the books denounced to it, to prohibit them if necessary, and to grant permission for reading forbidden books, but also to supervise, ex officio, books that are being published, and to pass sentence on such as deserve to be prohibited.
-- Pope Pius X		 
One Galileo in two thousand years is enough.
-- Pope Pius XII		 
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
-- Plato		 
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
-- Plato		 
Do not expect justice where might is right.
-- Plato		 
We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most.
-- Plato		 
A tyrant…is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato		 
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
-- Plato		 
Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.
-- Plato		 
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector.
-- Plato		 
Freedom in a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.
-- Plato		 
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
-- Plato		 
Democracy…is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
-- Plato		 
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
-- Plato		 
Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehood's school. And the one man who dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.
-- Plato		 
The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men.
-- Plato		 
Your silence gives consent.
-- Plato		 
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
-- Plato		 
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato		 
The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.
-- Plato		 
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
-- Plato		 
Kings … will … take possession of the children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws.
-- Plato		 
Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.
-- Titus Maccius Plautus		 
Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.
-- Titus Maccius Plautus		 
No man is wise enough by himself.
-- Titus Maccius Plautus		 
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
-- Pledge of Allegiance		 
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
-- Plutarch		 
The first destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who first gave them bounties and largess.
-- Plutarch		 
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
-- Plutarch		 
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
-- Plutarch		 
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
-- Plutarch		 
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch		 
[T]he next time you read or hear about a murder victim, a rape victim or an assault victim, I want you to preface it with the word 'unarmed' so that murder victims become 'unarmed murder victims'; this is especially true in rape. How many times have you read, 'An unidentified woman, heavily armed with a semi-automatic weapon was raped by a man wielding a knife.' No answer is necessary, right?
-- The Liberty Pole		 
Great popular support and enthusiasm for the United Nations policies should be built up, well organized and fully articulate. But it is necessary to do more than that. The opposition must be rendered so impotent that it will be unable to gather any significant support in the Senate against the United Nations Charter and the treaties which will follow.
-- Political Affairs		 
The freedom to make and admit mistakes is at the core of the scientific process. If we are asked to forswear error, or worse, to say that error means fraud, then we cannot function as scientists.
-- Robert Pollack		 
When libertarian moral theory is combined with economic theory a compelling conception of the good society emerges.
-- Lansing Pollock		 
We get lost in a fog of abstractions and easily forget that man is a bloodhound sniffing out the real.
-- Robert C. Pollock		 
[A] public policy of simply discouraging people from owning or using firearms is not, in and of itself, a constitutionally permissible objective, any more than discouraging people from religious observance would be permissible to some oh-so-progressive government that considered religion as hopelessly declassé as progressives nowadays consider the right to keep and bear arms .... And any statute or regulation that burdens the right to keep and bear arms on the ground that guns are a public health hazard should enjoy the same frosty reception in court that would be given a statute or regulation that burdened the free exercise of religion as a mental hazard.
-- Daniel D. Polsby		 
[There can be no] rational administration of government when good men are held in the same esteem as bad ones.
-- Polybius		 
The object of this clause [the right of the people to keep and bear arms] is to secure a well-armed militia.... But a militia would be useless unless the citizens were enabled to exercise themselves in the use of warlike weapons. To preserve this privilege, and to secure to the people the ability to oppose themselves in military force against the usurpations of government, as well as against enemies from without, that government is forbidden by any law or proceeding to invade or destroy the right to keep and bear arms.
-- John Norton Pomeroy		 
We turn sacred cows into hamburger.
-- Lowell Ponte		 
Give me again my hollow tree A crust of bread, and liberty!
-- Alexander Pope		 
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
-- Alexander Pope		 
Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few.
-- Alexander Pope		 
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
-- Alexander Pope		 
There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions… It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.
-- Sir Karl Popper		 
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
-- Sir Karl Popper		 
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. […] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
-- Karl R. Popper		 
Throughout the history of the United States, war has been the primary impetus behind the growth and development of the central state. It has been the lever by which presidents and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of tenacious popular resistance.
-- Bruce D. Porter		 
MacKinnon's treatment of the central issue of pornography as she herself poses it -- the harm that pornography does to women -- is shockingly causal. Much of her evidence is anecdotal, and in a nation of 260 Million people, anecdotes are a weak form of evidence.
-- Judge Richard Posner		 
I do not know what has caused MacKinnon to become, and, more surprisingly, to remain, so obsessed with pornography, and so zealous for censorship. But let us not sacrifice our civil liberties on the altar of her obsession.
-- Judge Richard Posner		 
Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old’s right to vote is a right personal to him rather than a right to be exercised on his behalf by his parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid of the state to shield their children from ideas of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary either. People are unlikely to become well-functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble.
-- Richard Posner		 
It is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches. ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech. Just imagine two rallies held at the same time in the same park area using public-address systems that drowned out each other's speakers.
-- Richard Posner		 
Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny -- and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today.
-- Richard Posner		 
Police may have no right to privacy in carrying out official duties in public. But the civilians they interact with do.
-- Judge Richard Allen Posner		 
If you permit the audio recordings, they'll be a lot more eavesdropping. ... There's going to be a lot of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers. ... Yes, it's a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy.
-- Judge Richard Allen Posner		 
Make no mistake about it: the labeling of someone’s language as ‘sexist’ involves a political judgment and implies the desirability of a particular sociological doctrine. One may be in favor of that doctrine (as I believe I am) but it is quite another matter to force writers by edicts and censorship into accepting it.
-- Neil Postman		 
The American notion of freedom transcended the political realm and in fact extended to every major category of human relationships, including those between employer and employee, clergyman and layman, husband and wife, parent and child, public official and citizen. Americans believed that, as of July 4, 1776, all men were created equal, and that any impairment of a man’s equality was destructive of his liberty also.
-- David M. Potter		 
It is clear in our criminal justice system that the jury has the power to nullify -- that is, the power to acquit or to convict on reduced charges despite overwhelming evidence against the defendant. ... In a criminal trial, the court cannot direct a verdict of guilty, no matter how strong the evidence. In addition, if the jury acquits, double jeopardy bars the prosecution from appealing the verdict or seeking retrial. Similarly, if the jury convicts the defendant of a less serious offense than the one charged, the prosecution cannot again try the defendant on the more serious charge. This result occurs regardless of whether the jury consciously rejects the law, embraces a merciful attitude, or is simply confused concerning the law or facts. Thus, nullification -- with or without authority, intended or not -- is part of our system.
-- Anne Bowen Poulin		 
The power of nullification plays an important role in the criminal justice system. ... Because an accused criminal is restricted in the defenses he or she can raise, the law recognizes only certain defenses and justification, and correspondingly, limited evidence. The jury’s power to nullify provides an accommodation between the rigidity of the law and the need to hear and respond to positions that do not fit legal pigeonholes, such as claims of spousal abuse before the battered-spouse syndrome received acceptance. Jury nullification permits the jury to respond to a position that does not have the status of a legally recognized defense. The power to nullify guarantees that the jury is free to speak as the conscience of the community.
-- Anne Bowen Poulin		 
Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.
-- Ezra Pound		 
The phase of the usury system which we are trying to analyze is more or less Patterson's perception that the Bank of England could have benefit of all the interest on all the money that it creates out of nothing. ... Now the American citizen can, of course, appeal to his constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to coin money or regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. Such appeal is perhaps quixotic.
-- Ezra Pound		 
I think an alliance with Stalin's Russia is rotten.
-- Ezra Pound		 
Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.
-- Ezra Pound		 


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