Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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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		 
If the sincere and thoughtful Mason would “take notice” of the symbolism and the use made everywhere in the Lodge of the word “Light,” and remember that the real Initiates are called also “the Illuminati.”
-- J.D. Buck		 
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
-- Pearl S. Buck		 
Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then; life is dull without it.
-- Pearl S. Buck		 
We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.		 
All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.		 
Now it is one thing to say (I say it) that people shouldn’t consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question?
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.		 
Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.		 
Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.		 
As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.
-- Buddha		 
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.
-- Buddha		 
A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others.
-- Buddha		 
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
-- Buddha		 
Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world.
-- Buddha		 
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
-- Buddha		 
He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.
-- Buddha		 
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
-- Buddha		 
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
-- Buddha		 
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
-- Buddha		 
On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.
-- Buddha		 
Do not dwell in the past, do not dwell in the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-- Buddha		 
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.
-- Buddha		 
Through zeal, knowledge is gotten; through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows the double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow.
-- Buddha		 
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
-- Buddha		 
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.
-- Buddha		 
Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.
-- Buddha		 
Whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings…that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
-- Buddha		 
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.
-- Buddha		 
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
-- Buddha		 
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
-- Buddha		 
A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.
-- Buddha		 
To keep the body in good health is a duty...otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
-- Buddha		 
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
-- Buddha		 
All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?
-- Buddha		 
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
-- Buddha		 
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
-- Buddha		 
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
-- Buddha		 
Thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
-- Buddha		 
Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.
-- Buddha		 
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.
-- Buddha		 
We are what we think. All that we are arises With our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world.
-- Buddha		 
The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.
-- Buddha		 
The Buddhas do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task.
-- Buddha		 
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-- Buddha		 
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
-- Buddha		 
A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.
-- Buddha		 
Born out of concern for all beings.
-- Buddha		 


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