It is easier to run away from a local tyranny than a national one. … [I]f it is one size fits all – if every congressional enactment or Supreme Court decision establishes a single rule for every American – then the stakes are very high as to what that rule is.more William Barr quotes |
These developments have given the press an unprecedented ability to mobilize a broad segment of the public on a national scale and direct that opinion in a particular direction.more William Barr quotes |
When the entire press ‘advances along the same track,’ as Tocqueville put it, the relationship between the press and the energized majority becomes mutually reinforcing. Not only does it become easier for the press to mobilize a majority, but the mobilized majority becomes more powerful and overweening with the press as its ally. This is not a positive cycle, and I think it is fair to say that it puts the press’s role as a breakwater for the tyranny of the majority in jeopardy. The key to restoring the press in that vital role is to cultivate a greater diversity of voices in the media.more William Barr quotes |
The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.more Alan Barth quotes |
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.more Frédéric Bastiat quotes |
Religious liberty is the chief cornerstone of the American system of government, and provisions for its security are embedded in the written charter and interwoven in the moral fabric of its laws. Anything that tends to invade a right so essential and sacred must be carefully guarded against, and I am satisfied that my countrymen, ever mindful of the suffering and sacrifices necessary to obtain it, will never consent to its impairment for any reason or under any pretext whatsoever.more Thomas F. Bayard quotes |
Provided I do not write about the government, or about religion, or politics, or morals, or those in power, or public bodies, or the Opera, or the other state theatres, or about anybody who is active in anything, I can print whatever I want.more Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais quotes |
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Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one -- at least no one other than the participants -- is harmed by it.more Hugo Adam Bedau quotes |
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Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.more Clive Bell quotes |
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[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.more Hilaire Belloc quotes |
No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.more Jeremy Bentham quotes |
I thank God, we have not free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience, and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both!more Sir William Berkeley quotes |
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.’more Richard Bernstein quotes |
I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits childred to be destroyed.more Daniel Berrigan quotes |
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.more Ambrose Bierce quotes |
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Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. ... Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy.more Big Brother quotes |
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.more John Biggs Jr. quotes |
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.more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes |
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Among the religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, ethical culture, secular humanism and others.more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes |
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.more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes |
Freedom of religion means the right of the individual to choose and to adhere to whichever religious beliefs he may prefer, to join with others in religious associations to express these beliefs, and to incur no civil disabilities because of his choice…more Joseph L. Blau quotes |
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I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him.more Napoleon Bonaparte quotes |
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.more Napoleon Bonaparte quotes |
No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right.more William E. Borah quotes |
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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].more Justice William J. Brennan quotes |
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.more Jacob Bronowski quotes |
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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.more James A. C. Brown quotes |
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.more James A. C. Brown quotes |
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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.more Patrick J. Buchanan quotes |
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The love of liberty that is not a real principle of dutiful behavior to authority is as hypocritical as the religion that is not productive of a good life.more Bishop Joseph Butler quotes |
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Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.more Charles Carroll quotes |
There are two kinds of restrictions on human liberty -- the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.more Carrie Chapman Catt quotes |
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We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments.more Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes |
Long before I was ordained a priest, I knew that my church was the most implacable enemy of this republic. My professors … had been unanimous in telling me that the principles and laws of the Church of Rome were absolutely antagonistic to the principles which are the foundation stones of the Constitution of the United States of America.more Charles Chiniquy quotes |
To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.more Dr. G. Brock Chisolm quotes |
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.more Noam Chomsky quotes |
