Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"How bad do things have to get before you do something? Do they have to take away all your property? Do they have to license every activity that you want to engage in? Do they have to start throwing you on cattle cars before you say “now wait a minute, I don’t think this is a good idea.” How long is it going to be before you finally resist and say “No, I will not comply. Period!” Ask yourself now because sooner or later you are going to come to that line, and when they cross it, you’re going to say well now cross this line; ok now cross that line; ok now cross this line. Pretty soon you’re in a corner. Sooner or later you’ve got to stand your ground whether anybody else does or not. That is what liberty is all about."

~ Michael Badnarik  

"Prosperity requires liberty: to be productive we must be free."

~ Jarret B. Wollstein  

~ James Madison  

"The most important political office is that of private citizen."

~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis  

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."

~ Winston Churchill  

"An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs
is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment."

~ Justice Hugo L. Black  

"It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint."

~ Thomas I. Emerson  

"Your silence gives consent."

~ Plato  

"I swear by my life, and love of it,
that I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for mine."

~ Ayn Rand  

"We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge."

~ Fisher Ames  

"All our liberties are due to men who,
when their conscience has compelled them,
have broken the laws of the land."

~ William Kingdon Clifford  

"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"It is embarrassing to have to remind people of this in the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson singled out three natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The last phrase, appearing instead of "property," has prompted much discussion. I cannot say what Jefferson was thinking. But here's a plausible theory: Property is already implicit in liberty. If you are free, you can use your belongings as you see fit. But by specifying the pursuit of happiness Jefferson might have been pointing out that the blessing of liberty need not be justified through selfless service to others. One's life and happiness on earth are justification enough."

~ Sheldon Richman  

"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right."

~ Thomas Jefferson