Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"The liberty of the individual
is the greatest thing of all,
it is on this and this alone that
the true will of the people can develop."

~ Alexander Ivanovich Herzen  

"In questions of science the authority of a thousand
is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."

~ Galileo Galilei  

"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."

~ Henrik Ibsen  

"Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others."

~ Alistair Cooke  

"It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression."

~ Eric Hoffer  

"By giving the government unlimited powers,
the most arbitrary rule can be made legal;
and in this way a democracy may set up
the most complete despotism imaginable."

~ Friedrich August von Hayek  

"Vitality springs from diversity -- which makes for real progress
so long as there is mutual toleration, based on the recognition that
worse may come from an attempt to suppress differences than from
acceptance of them. For this reason, the kind of peace that makes
progress possible is best assured by the mutual checks created by a
balance of forces-alike in the sphere of internal politics and of
international relations."

~ B. H. Liddell Hart  

"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation;
and a house divided against a house falleth."

~ Jesus of Nazareth  

"You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal."

~ John De Armond  

"Those in power need checks and restraints
lest they come to identify the common good
for their own tastes and desires, and
their continuation in office as essential
to the preservation of the nation."

~ Justice William O. Douglas  

"Political liberty is nothing else but the diffusion of power."

~ Lord Hailsham

"Indeed, it was the enumeration of powers,
not the enumeration of rights in the Bill of Rights,
that was meant by the Framers to be
the principal limitation on government power."

~ Roger Pilon  

"The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good."

~ Baltasar Gracian  

"Politics must be the battle of the principles...
the principle of liberty against the principle of force."

~ Auberon Herbert  

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

~ Benjamin Franklin