Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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It will appear evident upon attentive consideration that equality of intellectual and physical advantages is the only sure foundation of liberty, and that such equality may best, and perhaps only, be obtained by a union of interests and cooperation in labor.
-- Frances Wright		 
Persecution for opinion is the master vice of society.
-- Frances Wright		 
A sure sign of a genius is that all of the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright		 
The truth is more important than the facts.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright		 
It perhaps goes without saying that the ‘average’ gun owner and the ‘average’ criminal are worlds apart in background, social outlooks, and economic circumstances. The idea that common, ordinary citizens are somehow transformed into potential perpetrators of criminally violent acts once they have acquired a firearm seems farfetched, most of all since there is substantial evidence that the typical gun owner is affluent, Protestant, and middle-class.
-- James D. Wright		 
It is ironical that the only nation which affirmatively expresses a dependence upon and belief in Almighty God in its birth certificate, should now be in mortal combat for its very existence with a godless conspiracy intent upon conquering the world, and reverting human society to the hazards and indignities of the Dark Ages.
-- Loyd Wright		 
Ladies and Gentlemen, we only pass laws against people who obey the law. Drug dealers, bank robbers and rapists don’t care what we do because they willfully violate the law anyway.
-- Rod Wright		 
To disregard such a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning, would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation. "In expounding the Constitution of the United States," said Chief Justice Taney in Holmes v. Jennison, 14 U.S. 540, 570-1, "every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that, no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the Constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation and its force and effect to have been fully understood.
-- Wright v. United States		 
Capital will always go where it’s welcome and stay where it’s well treated. Capital is not just money. It’s also talent and ideas. They, too, will go where they’re welcome and stay where they are well treated.
-- Walter Wriston		 
[Each member government]...shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations [to the World Trade Organization].
-- WTO Charter		 
The first gold star a child gets in school for the mere performance of a needful task is its first lesson in graft.
-- Philip Wylie		 
Absolute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.
-- Wyoming Declaration of Rights Art. I, Sec. 7		 
Power never takes a back step -- only in the face of more power.
-- Malcolm X		 
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
-- Malcolm X		 
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
-- Malcolm X		 

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Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards.
-- Francis Xavier		 

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President Bush told Congress on Wednesday to “untie the hands” of law enforcement officials and arm them with wider legal powers to combat terrorists, saying the groups that struck America two years ago are wounded but still dangerous. He specifically called for expanding use of the federal death penalty, tougher bail restrictions and greater subpoena powers. … Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said all three provisions Bush highlighted were included in a draft sequel to the Patriot Act that was made public earlier this year. “What’s relevant is that President Bush is trying to push through these powers that the Justice Department put together as a sequel to the Patriot Act in a way that further undermines civil rights and civil liberties,” Edgar said.
-- Yahoo News		 
Police State: A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.
-- Yahooligans Reference		 
The right of the jury to decide questions of law was widely recognized in the colonies. In 1771, John Adams stated unequivocally that a juror should ignore a judge’s instruction on the law if it violates fundamental principles: “It is not only ... [the juror’s] right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” There is much evidence of the general acceptance of this principle in the period immediately after the Constitution was adopted.
-- Yale Law Journal		 
Academic freedom means the right, long accepted in the academic world, to study, discuss, and write about facts and ideas without restrictions, other than those imposed by conscience and morality.
-- Yale University		 
A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.
-- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto		 
The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants.
-- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto		 
It is always a part of the misfortunes of the vanquished that their portraits are painted and their history written by the victors.
-- A. Yankee		 
An individual should not have too much freedom. A nation should have absolute freedom.
-- Sun Yat-sen		 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
-- W.B. Yeats		 
One day posterity will remember these strange times, when ordinary common honesty was called courage.
-- Yevgeny Yevtushenko		 
A half truth is a whole lie.
-- Yiddish Proverb		 
Give a man secure possession of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden; give him nine years lease of a garden and he will turn it into a desert.
-- Arthur Young		 
Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care. ... It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.
-- Judge Francis L. Young		 
The power of the Right is principle, and the principle of the Left is power. Understand this and you will understand the basis of modern politics.
-- J.T. Young		 
Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
-- Lin Yutang		 
It is a mindless philosophy that assumes that one's private beliefs have nothing to do with public office. Does it make sense to entrust those who are immoral in private with the power to determine the nation's moral issues and, indeed, its destiny? .... The duplicitous soul of a leader can only make a nation more sophisticated in evil.
-- Dr. Ravi Zacharias		 
Words are the pen of the heart, but music is the pen of the soul.
-- Shueur Zalman		 
America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming.
-- Israel Zangwill		 
Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it... Rise for the flag salute.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Asked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether.
-- Frank Zappa		 
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Rock music was never written for or performed for conservative tastes.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best.
-- Frank Zappa		 
If lyrics make people do things, how come we don't love each other?
-- Frank Zappa		 
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
-- Frank Zappa		 
The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
-- Frank Zappa		 
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
-- Frank Zappa		 
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline -- it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.
-- Frank Zappa		 
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
-- Frank Zappa		 
I am thought. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear. I can feel what the heart cannot feel. Yet I create Beauty for the eyes, Music for the ears, Love for the heart. They, ignorant of their ignorance, call me cold. Barren of Sight. Barren of Sound. Barren of Feeling. But it is I who am from which all comes. Given to the ungrateful. Unseen. Unheard. Unfelt.
-- Peter Zarlenga		 
I wouldn't call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either.
-- Edward Zehr		 
No nation, ancient or modern, ever lost the liberty of speaking freely, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.
-- John Peter Zenger		 
The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the suppression of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is the best preservative of the whole.
-- John Peter Zenger		 
Prejudice rarely survives experience.
-- Eve Zibart		 
Since they have dared, I too shall dare. I shall tell the truth because I pledged myself to tell it if justice regularly empowered did not do so fully, unmitigated. My duty is to speak; I have no wish to be an accomplice.
-- Emile Zola		 
Duct tape is like 'the Force'. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
-- Carl Zwanzig		 

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A family member asked my wife, "Aren't you concerned about his (our son's) socialization with other kids?" My wife gave this response: "Go to your local middle school, junior high, or high school, walk down the hallways, and tell me which behavior you see that you think our son should emulate.
-- Manfred B. Zysk		 

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