Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom."

~ John Quincy Adams  

"Neither the trappings of robes, nor temples of stone, nor a fixed
liturgy, nor an extensive literature or history is required to meet the
test of beliefs cognizable under the Constitution as religious. So far
as our law is concerned, one person's religious beliefs held for one
day are presumptively entitled to the same protection as the beliefs of
millions which have been shared for thousands of years."

~ Judge Jack B. Weinstein  

"Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking
are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom,
so also the individual’s freedom to choose his own creed is the
counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established
by the majority."

~ Justice John Paul Stevens  

"[I]f we can but prevent the government
from wasting the labours of the people,
under the pretence of taking care of them,
they must become happy."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State,
be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any
speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute."

~ Lord Acton  

"The makers of our constitution undertook to secure conditions
favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect
Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and
their sensations. They conferred, as against the government,
the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of the rights
and the right most valued by civilized men."

~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis  

"Forgive all who have offended you,
not for them, but for yourself."

~ Harriet Nelson  

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

~ Plato  

"This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter."

~ The Mahabharata  

"Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a free man. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner."

~ James Fenimore Cooper  

"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  

"There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else."

~ Peyton Conway March  

"We believe that human happiness requires freedom
and that freedom requires limited government."

~ Charles Alan Murray  

"The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another."

~ Edmund Burke  

"Personal liberty is the paramount essential
to human dignity and human happiness."

~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton