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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Altruism demands that an individual serve others, but doesn’t stipulate whether those others should be one’s family, or the homeless, or society as a whole. Collectivism states that, in politics, society comes first and the individual must obey.  Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics.
-- Andrew Bernstein		 
Statism – the subordination of the individual to the state --  leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression.
-- Andrew Bernstein		 
Collectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that society as a whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value. ... Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics.
-- Andrew Bernstein		 
I would not be fooled by the old myth that reporting is about objectivity. Deciding what is news is the most subjective of acts and it is probably the most important thing that we do.
-- Carl Bernstein		 
The whole point of the liberal revolution that gave rise to the 1960’s was to free us from somebody else’s dogma, but now the same people…are striving to impose on others a secularized religion…disguising it behind innocuous labels like ‘diversity training’ and ‘respect for difference.’
-- Richard Bernstein		 
It's never over 'till it's over.
-- Yogi Berra		 
If you don't know where you're going, when you get there you'll be lost.
-- Yogi Berra		 
Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
-- Yogi Berra		 
If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.
-- Yogi Berra		 
I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits childred to be destroyed.
-- Daniel Berrigan		 
But how shall we educate men to goodness, to a sense of one another, to a love of truth? And more urgently, how shall we do this in a bad time?
-- Daniel Joseph Berrigan		 
If your library is not ‘unsafe’, it probably isn’t doing its job.
-- John Berry		 
What a valuable tool food aid can be in changing behaviour. ... food is power. ... Yes, it's bribery. We don't apologize for that.
-- Catherine Bertini		 
Let's have no illusions. We can't easily change the underlying beliefs and prejudices that do so much damage to women worldwide. We cannot quickly change attitudes, but we can change behaviour. At the World Food Programme we have recognized what a valuable tool food aid can be in changing behaviour. In so many poorer countries food is money, food is power. In some of our most successful food aid projects, we literally pay families who do not believe in educating their daughters to send those girls to school. A little free cooking oil can go a long way. We trade a 5 litre can of oil for 30 days of school attendance by a young girl. Yes, it's bribery. We don't apologize for that. We are changing behaviour, we are giving hope and opportunity to young girls and that is all that counts. Each small change in behaviour will one day pay off in a change in attitude.
-- Catherine Bertini		 
Tolerance is the eager and glad acceptance of the way along which others seek the truth.
-- Sir Walter Besant		 
It is wrong to take half or more of what people earn; wrong to force some people to pay for the support of others, threatening them with jail if they refuse (are in “noncompliance”).
-- Tom Bethel		 
No Gulag, evidently, can deter the advocates of state power from believing in their own virtue and in the morality of the power they exercise. We are all Hobbesians now. Virtue is presumed to reside in the state. Its reliance on compulsion is seen as fulfilling, not undermining, morality. Our communicators, oddly employed in the private sector, work tirelessly to ensure that state control is maintained, our taxes stay high, the official message is promoted. The people know, and can only know, a tiny fraction of what Leviathan does, and what they know is what these partisans tell them.
-- Tom Bethel		 
No government has ever commanded the resources at the disposal of our ungodly Leviathan, which consumes about 25 percent of the product of the world’s richest country. It is driven by a voracious alliance of government’s own employees, and those who receive benefits from the state. At least 90 million Americans either depend directly on government handouts or jobs, and each private worker must support not only himself and his family, but also carry a government worker on his shoulders.
-- Tom Bethel		 
If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.
-- Mary McLeod Bethune		 
This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence -- but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.
-- Bruno Bettelheim		 
If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals—not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall.
-- Albert J. Beveridge		 
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.
-- Albert J. Beveridge		 
America would be better off as a country and Americans happier and more prosperous as a people if half of our government boards, bureaus, and commissions were Abolished, hundreds of thousands of our government officials, agents and employees were discharged, and two-thirds of our government regulations, restrictions, inhibitions were removed.
-- Albert J. Beveridge		 
A newspaper has three things to do. One is to amuse, another is to entertain and the rest is to mislead.
-- Ernest Bevin		 
You know all what I'm about to, what I've said, and you know what I've done, and you know what we're doing, and you know -- I know what you're doing.
-- Joe Biden		 
Republicans don't know how to defend morally an individual's right to achieve wealth and to keep it, and that is why they fail. ... It's part and parcel with their ambivalence over the individualist heritage of the nation. ... One of the things that people have to understand is that the American Revolution was truly an epic revolution in the way individuals were perceived in relation to the rest of the society.  Throughout history individuals had always been cogs in some machine; they'd always been something to be sacrificed for the king, the tribe, the gang, the chieftain, the society around them, the race, whatever, and the real revolution, in America especially, was a moral revolution.  It was a moral revolution in that ... suddenly, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the individual, his life, his well-being, his property, his happiness became central to our values, and thatis what really made America unique.  People came here from all over the world to try to escape the kind of oppression they had and experienced in the past. They came here for freedom; they came here for self-expression and self-realization, and America offered them that kind of a place.
-- Robert Bidinotto		 
Republicans don't know how to defend morally an individual's right to achieve wealth and to keep it, and that is why they fail. ... It's part and parcel with their ambivalence over the individualist heritage of the nation. ... One of the things that people have to understand is that the American Revolution was truly an epic revolution in the way individuals were perceived in relation to the rest of the society.  Throughout history individuals had always been cogs in some machine; they'd always been something to be sacrificed for the king, the tribe, the gang, the chieftain, the society around them, the race, whatever, and the real revolution, in America especially, was a moral revolution.  It was a moral revolution in that ... suddenly, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the individual, his life, his well-being, his property, his happiness became central to our values, and that is what really made America unique.  People came here from all over the world to try to escape the kind of oppression they had and experienced in the past. They came here for freedom; they came here for self-expression and self-realization, and America offered them that kind of a place.
-- Robert Bidinotto		 
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. ... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind... Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Heathen, n. A benighten creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
-- Ambrose Bierce		 
What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS.
-- Ed Biersmith		 
Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. ... Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy.
-- Big Brother		 
Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins.
-- John Biggs Jr.		 
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
-- Steve Biko		 
Our U.S. government each year spends roughly 30 percent more money than it takes in. It took 39 Presidents and 200 years to accumulate a debt of $1 trillion dollars. But it has taken only the past 12 years for that debt to triple to more than $5.9 trillion. Interest payments on the deficit alone add up to more than what our government pays for unemployment compensation, veteran's benefits, postal operations, housing, education, and highways combined. Saddled with this tremendous burden, it is impossible for our businesses to invest, harder for families to afford homes and medical care, and difficult for the United States to play its role in matters of national and international economic security.
-- James Bilbray		 
The freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.
-- The English Bill Of Rights		 
The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so.
-- Josh Billings		 
Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.
-- Josh Billings		 
Under our form of government, the legislature is not supreme ... like other departments of government, it can only exercise such powers as have been delegated to it, and when it steps beyond that boundary, its acts, like those of the most humble magistrate in the state who transcends his jurisdiction, are utterly void.
-- Billings v. Hall		 
Intellectual and cultural freedom is the most important single precondition for the breakdown of the kinds of tyrannical and totalitarian systems that periodically threaten us.
-- James Billington		 
Whatever power you give to the good cops, goes to the bad ones, too. Never forget that.
-- Phillip J. Birmingham		 
The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they "create" the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their "Federal Reserve Notes" and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.
-- H. L. Birum, Sr.		 
A good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who’d rather write a good story.
-- Jim Bishop		 
The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
-- Jim Bishop		 
A national government is a government of the people of a single state or nation, united as a community by what is termed the 'social compact,’ and possessing complete and perfect supremacy over persons and things, so far as they can be made the lawful objects of civil government. A federal government is distinguished from a national government by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact.
-- Black's Law Dictionary		 
Militia: The body of citizens in a state, enrolled for discipline as a military force, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies, as distinguished from regular troops or a standing army.
-- Black's Law Dictionary, 3rd Edition		 
What a government of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some means of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers. That is the condition of its legitimacy, and its legitimacy, in the long run, is the condition of its life.
-- Charles L. Black, Jr.		 
Liberty, whether natural, civil, or political, is the lawful power in the individual to exercise his corresponding rights. It is greatly favored in law.
-- Henry Campbell Black		 
What finally emerges from the ‘clear and present danger’ cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished…It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the constitution but freedom to continue to prevent others from publishing is not.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political “mistakes” without being subjected to governmental penalties.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
... any broad unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the ‘conscience of our people’ ... was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the First Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.
-- Justice Hugo L. Black		 


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