Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"A man should be upright, not be kept upright."

~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus  

"You ask yourself not
if this or that is expedient,
but if it is right."

~ Alan Paton  

"Once we start to worry too often and too deeply about
what certain individuals and what certain groups think about us,
then we might start selling our souls for the sake of expediency."

~ Otis Chandler  

"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. -- From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy."

~ Daniel Webster  

"It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised
that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives."

~ Dorothy Thompson  

"Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force."

~ Samuel Cooke  

"Of all the properties which belong to honorable men,
not one is so highly prized as that of character."

~ Henry Clay  

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching."

~ Jim Stovall  

"No man, for any considerable period,
can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude,
without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true."

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne  

"Not to be, but to seem, virtuous --
it is a formula whose utility we all discovered in the nursery."

~ C. S. Lewis  

"It is said that power corrupts,
but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible.
The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

~ David Brin  

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens,
you can never regain their respect and esteem.
It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time;
you can even fool some of the people all of the time;
but you can't fool all of the people all the time."

~ Abraham Lincoln  

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower  

"Over the 20th century, the federal government has assumed a vast and unprecedented set of powers. Not only has the exercise of those powers upset the balance between federal and state governments; run roughshod over individuals, families, and firms; and reduced economic opportunity for all; but most of what the federal government does today -- to put the point as plainly and candidly as possible -- is illegitimate because done without explicit constitutional authority. The time has come to start returning power to the states and the people, to relimit federal power in our fundamental law, to restore constitutional government."

~ Roger Pilon  

"That frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty, and keep government free. The people ought, therefore, to pay particular attention to these points, in the choice of officers and representatives, and have a right to exact a due and constant regard to them, from their legislators and magistrates, in the making and executing such laws as are necessary for the good government of the State."

~ Vermont Declaration of Rights