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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
Valor withers without adversity.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
No man expects such exact fidelity as a traitor.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca		 
Tocqueville saw the brute repression of deviants as a necessity if men were to keep convincing themselves of their collective dignity through their collective sameness. The “poets of society,” the men who challenged the norms, would have to be silenced so that sameness could be maintained.
-- Richard Sennett		 
Sound money and free banking are not impossible; they are merely illegal. Freedom of money and freedom of banking...are the principles that must guide our steps.
-- Hans F. Sennholz		 
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
-- Dr. Seuss		 
The bigger the information media, the less courage and information they allow. Bigness means weakness.
-- Eric Sevareid		 
The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it.
-- Horatio Seymour		 
The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge.
-- Butler D. Shaffer		 
The State…has had a vested interest in promoting attitudes that would tend to make us skeptical of our own abilities, fearful of the motives of others, and emotionally dependent upon external authorities for purpose and direction in our lives.
-- Butler D. Shaffer		 
It is collectivism that is the unrealistic expression of utopian belief systems.  In its worst form -- the state -- collectivism is the institutionalized exertion of violence to compel living beings to behave contrary to their natural self-interest inclinations.  So strong are the motivations for individual preferences that the state must resort to attacks upon the very nature of life to satisfy the ambitions of those who see others as nothing more than resources to be exploited for such ends.
-- Butler D. Shaffer		 
Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us.
-- Butler D. Shaffer		 
Our lack of constant awareness has also permitted us to accept definitions of freedom that are not necessarily consistent with the actuality of being free. Because we have learned to confuse the word with the reality the word seeks to describe, our vocabulary has become riddled with distorted and contradictory meanings smuggled into the language.
-- Butler D. Shaffer		 
Republics are formed only after revolution. The change to the empire is slow and gradual. One of the saddest lessons of history is that whenever these schools of politics have met in the republics of old, the imperial school, with its dazzling influence of wealth and power, has always won.
-- John F. Shafroth		 
Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.
-- Ben Shahn		 
The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation.
-- William Shakespeare		 
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
-- William Shakespeare		 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
-- William Shakespeare		 
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
-- William Shakespeare		 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
-- William Shakespeare		 
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
-- William Shakespeare		 
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
-- William Shakespeare		 
If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.
-- William Shakespeare		 
To willful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters.
-- William Shakespeare		 
With devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself.
-- William Shakespeare		 
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
-- William Shakespeare		 
When the mind's free, The body's delicate.
-- William Shakespeare		 
So every bondman in his own hand bear\\ The power to cancel his captivity.
-- William Shakespeare		 
True nobility is exempt from fear.
-- William Shakespeare		 
Freedom? you asking me about freedom? you asking me about freedom? I’ll be honest with you, I know a whole lot more, about what freedom isn’t than what it is ...
-- Assata Shakur		 
Liberty's view of the government could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it works, work with it. If it doesn't, work against it. If it works you over, abolish it.
-- Angel Shamaya		 
Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.
-- Adi Shankaracharya		 
When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.
-- Albert Shanker		 
It is time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy. It's a bureaucratic system where everybody's role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's not a surprise when a school system doesn't improve. It more resembles a Communist economy than our own market economy.
-- Albert Shanker		 
The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable. Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life.
-- James Shapiro		 
Cells constantly adjust their metabolism to available nutrients, control their progress through their cell cycle to make sure that all progeny are complete at the time of division, repair damage as it occurs, and interact appropriately with other cells. In a multicellular context, they even undergo programmed cell death when suicide is beneficial to the entire population or to the multicellular organism as a whole.
-- James Shapiro		 
Can you imagine working at the following Company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics: 29 have been accused of spousal abuse. 7 have been arrested for fraud. 19 have been accused of writing bad checks. 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses. 3 have been arrested for assault. 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit. 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges. 8 have been arrested for shoplifting. 21 are current defendants in law suits. 84 were stopped for drunk driving in 1998 alone. Can you guess which organization this is? Give up? It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.
-- Jack Sharp		 
GDP is an important metric for determining how much the United States could afford to spend on defense, but it provides no insight into how much the United States should spend. Defense planning is a matter of matching limited resources to achieve carefully scrutinized and prioritized objectives. When there are more threats, a nation spends more. When there are fewer threats, it spends less. As threats evolve, funding should evolve along with them. ... Unfortunately, setting defense spending at four percent of GDP would shield the Pentagon from careful scrutiny and curtail a much-needed transparent national debate.
-- Travis Sharp		 
In the twentieth century the number of people killed by their own governments under authoritarian regimes is four times the number killed in all this century’s wars combined.
-- John Shattuck		 
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
You have to choose [as a voter] between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
If you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may as well not say it at all because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Marx’s Kapital is not a treatise on socialism; it is a gerrymand against the bourgeoisie. It was supposed to be written for the working class, but the working man respects the bourgeoisie and wants to be a bourgeoisie. Marx never got a hold of him for a moment. It was the revolting sons of the bourgeoisie itself, like myself, that painted the flag red. The middle and upper classes are the revolutionary element in society. The proletariat is the conservative element.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
If the governments devalue the currency in order to betray all creditors, you politely call this procedure 'inflation'.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it's own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 

-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure time for freedom than unconventionality does.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Lack of money is the root of all evil.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
All great truths began as blasphemies.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essense of inhumanity.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 
My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.
-- George Bernard Shaw		 


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