Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis		 
A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade... there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event.
-- Nathaniel Branden		 
The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism ...
-- Nathaniel Branden		 
Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights ...
-- Nathaniel Branden		 
Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism -- the belief that the individual exists to serve others -- is translated into political reality.
-- Nathaniel Branden		 
As teachers, we enter the minds of others; thus we live in eternity. We help others live better lives, thus teaching remains a mercy.
-- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein		 
Every child who believes in God is mentally ill.
-- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein (False)		 
Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
-- Robert Brault		 
There is no wisdom without knowledge.
-- Tom Braun		 
If you think we are free today, you know nothing about tyranny and even less about freedom.
-- Tom Braun		 
Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.
-- Bertolt Brecht		 
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you!
-- Bertolt Brecht		 
All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment].
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
There is no such thing as a false idea.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
-- Justice William J. Brennan		 
Historians and economists are very good at creating and perpetuating myths that justify increasing the power placed in the hands of government.
-- Reuven Brenner		 
Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure.
-- Kingman Brewster		 
And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, [President Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control what people think. And that, that is our job.
-- Mika Brezinski		 
No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices.
-- Harry Bridges		 
Absolutism is a guarantee of objectionable morals in the same way that absolutism in government is a guarantee of objectionable government.
-- Robert Briffault		 
Force is not a remedy.
-- John Bright		 
I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant		 
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant		 
I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant		 
By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant		 
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
-- David Brin		 
The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.
-- David Brinkley		 
Anybody that wants the Presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
-- David Broder		 
There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.
-- Jacob Bronowski		 
But while capitalism may be a convenient scapegoat, it did not cause any of these problems. Indeed, whatever one wishes to call the unruly mixture of freedom and government controls that made up our economic and political system during the last three decades, one cannot call it capitalism.
-- Yaron Brook		 
. . . for righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; To rule o'er freemen, should themselves be free.
-- Henry Brooke		 
Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool.
-- Bellamy Brooks		 
I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers		 
Free speech is about as good a cause as the world has ever known. But it…gets shoved aside in favor of things which at a given moment more vital…everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.
-- Heywood Broun		 
The censor believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all, it is life with which he quarrels.
-- Heywood Broun		 
The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
-- Heywood Hale Broun		 
Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian.
-- Heywood Hale Broun		 
The American communists worked energetically and tirelessly to lay the foundations for the United Nations which we were sure would come into existence. … It can be said, without exaggeration, that ever closer relations between our nation and the Soviet Union are an unconditional requirement for the United Nations as a world coalition. … The United Nations is the instrument for victory. Victory is required for the survival of our nation. The Soviet Union is an essential part of the United Nations. Mutual confidence between our country and the Soviet Union and joint work in the leadership of the United Nations are absolutely necessary.
-- Earl Browder		 
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.		 
People take different roads seeking fulfillment & happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.		 
Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority.
-- James A. C. Brown		 
There exists a “fear of freedom” of selfhood, which makes people want to submerge themselves in the mass and confession is one of the obvious means by which they can do so, for thereby they lose those traits which cause them to feel separate.
-- James A. C. Brown		 
The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable [...] There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court.
-- Justice Janice Brown		 
As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence.
-- Jerry Brown		 
Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense.
-- Norman O. Brown		 
[T]he best elements of the national and state bars are seriously and energetically working for practical reforms in legal procedure, in the manner of the selection of judges, and in the prevention of delays and against the miscarriage of justice, and this, too, by feasible and constitutional measures and by every constructive and really progressive method which can be devised; and that the fact that satisfactory remedies have not yet been attained, is not the fault of the bench or of the bar, whose leaders have for years been urging upon the people, through the legislatures, fully formulated and efficient remedial measures. The fault lies with the people themselves, whose direct representatives in the legislatures, national and state, refuse properly to consider and act upon proposed laws of authenticated and undeniable efficacy.
-- Rome G. Brown		 
The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.
-- Harry Browne		 
You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.
-- Harry Browne		 
Being a politician means never having to say you're sorry. You don't have to say, 'I never should have voted to subsidize that ridiculous Enron project in India.' ... After all, they're greedy businessmen and you're a selfless public servant.
-- Harry Browne		 
For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise.
-- Harry Browne		 
The press is hostile to the idea of liberty.  Most people in the press are for big government.  Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is -- it's got to be more government.
-- Harry Browne		 
The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.
-- Harry Browne		 
We should never define libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals and conservatives, nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times.
-- Harry Browne		 
If the Fed had a war on abortion like its war on poverty or war on drugs, within 5 years men would be having abortions!
-- Harry Browne		 
The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it.
-- Harry Browne		 
There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare.
-- Harry Browne		 
Government is a parasite—a cancer that by nature tries to spread deeper into society. Those who want to run others’ lives won’t give up and start minding their own business.
-- Harry Browne		 
Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.
-- Harry Browne		 
The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.’
-- Harry Browne		 
A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot -- because the first leads inevitably to the second.
-- Harry Browne		 
Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that's been taken.
-- Harry Browne		 
I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.
-- Harry Browne		 
A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out.
-- Harry Browne		 
The elegance of honesty needs no adornment.
-- Merry Browne		 
The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.
-- Sir Thomas Browne		 
Be assured that if this new provision [the 14th Amendment] be engrafted in the Constitution, it will, in time, change the entire structure and texture of our government, and sweep away all the guarantees of safety devised and provided by our patriotic Sires of the Revolution.
-- Orville Browning		 
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for?
-- Robert Browning		 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.
-- Robert Browning		 
[U]nderlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me that we are experiencing a sort of low grade war going on between two alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of civilized society: a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the lines of responsibility and authority clearly drawn, and with decisions made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation. To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful, and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot on civilization. On the other side is a group of people who do not tend to be especially articulate or literate, and whose world view is rarely expressed in print. .... They ask, because they do not understand the other side, “Why do these people want to disarm us?” They consider themselves no threat to anyone; they are not criminals, not revolutionaries. But slowly, as they become politicized, they find an analysis that fits the phenomenon they experience: Someone fears their having guns, someone is afraid of their defending their families, property, and liberty. Nasty things may begin to happen if these people begin to feel that they are cornered.
-- B. Bruce-Briggs		 
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce		 
They call it the Halls of Justice because the only place you get justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce		 
Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell.
-- Lenny Bruce		 
As the organized Left gained cultural power, it turned into a monster that found perpetual victimhood, combined with thought and speech control, the most efficient way to hold on to that power. Suddenly it was the Left, the protector of liberty, that was setting rules about what could and could not be said or even thought.
-- Tammy Bruce		 
No matter how noble the original intentions, the seductions of power can turn any movement from one seeking equal rights to one that would deny them to others.
-- Tammy Bruce		 
It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
-- Giordano Bruno		 
Every time we establish a new crime, we’re creating a new mechanism for the government to check up on you.
-- James A. Bruton, III		 
I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.
-- Brutus		 
Money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.
-- William Jennings Bryan		 
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
-- William Jennings Bryan		 
If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.
-- John "Birdman" Bryant		 
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.
-- William Cullen Bryant		 
The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.
-- William Cullen Bryant		 
Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions.
-- James Bryce		 
I have often asked Americans wherein they consider their freedom superior to that of the English, but have never found them able to indicate a single point in which the individual is worse off in England as regards his private civil rights or his general liberty of doing and thinking as he pleases. They generally turn the discussion to social equality, the existence of a monarchy and hereditary titles and so forth – matters which are, of course, quite different from freedom in its proper sense.
-- James Bryce		 
Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...
-- Zbigniew Brzezinski		 
If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country.
-- James Buchanan		 
I like the noise of democracy.
-- James Buchanan		 
What is right and what is practicable are two different things.
-- James Buchanan		 
We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.'
-- Patrick J. Buchanan		 
The village atheist has the right to be heard; he has no right to be heeded. While he has a right not to have his own children indoctrinated in what he believes are false and foolish teachings, he has no right to dictate what other children may be taught.
-- Patrick J. Buchanan		 
Tax reform is taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed before.
-- Art Buchwald		 


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