Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

~ Voltaire  

"Men in authority will always think that
criticism of their policies is dangerous.
They will always equate their policies
with patriotism, and find criticism subversive."

~ Henry Steele Commager  

"I should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy,
than one innocent to be condemned unjustly."

~ Sir John Fortescue  

"To argue against any breach of liberty
from the ill use that may be made of it,
is to argue against liberty itself,
since all is capable of being abused."

~ Lord George Lyttleton  

"Freedom is not worth living if it does not connote freedom to err.
It passes my comprehension how human beings,
be they ever so experienced and able,
can delight in depriving other human beings of that previous right."

~ Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi  

"There are no mistakes.
The events we bring upon ourselves,
no matter how unpleasant,
are necessary in order
to learn what we need to learn;
whatever steps we take,
they're necessary to reach
the places we've chosen to go."

~ Richard Bach  

"The law isn't justice.
It's a very imperfect mechanism.
If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky,
justice may show up in the answer.
A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be."

~ Raymond Chandler  

"The law, unfortunately, has always been retained on the side of power;
laws have uniformly been enacted for the protection and perpetuation of power."

~ Thomas Cooper  

"It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority."

~ Eric Hoffer  

"Whenever the offence inspires
less horror than the punishment,
the rigour of penal law is obliged
to give way to the common feelings
of mankind."

~ Edward Gibbon  

"Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man."

~ John Locke  

"The test for whether one is living in a police state is
that those who are charged with enforcing the law
are allowed to break the laws with impunity."

~ Jon Roland  

"In questions of law or of fact
conscience is very often confounded with opinion.
No man’s conscience can tell him the rights of another man;
they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry."

~ Dr. Samuel Johnson  

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

~ Robert A. Heinlein