Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits."

~ Edward L. Bernays  

"I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself."

~ John Adams  

"The political spirit is the great force
in throwing the love of truth and
accurate reasoning into a secondary place."

~ John Viscount Morley  

"Prohibition ended in 1933 because the nation’s most influential people, as well as the general public, acknowledged that it had failed. It had increased lawlessness and drinking and aggravated alcohol abuse."

~ Thomas M. Coffey  

"Censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end,
the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion...
In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating
the difference between independence of thought and subservience."

~ Henry Steele Commager  

"To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it."

~ Michel De Montaigne  

"Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night.
Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people,
does not suppress medical research,
does not peek in bedroom windows.
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation
of the prohibitionists at face value,
marijuana prohibition has done far more harm
to far more people than marijuana ever could."

~ William F. Buckley, Jr.  

"If somebody smokes a joint, we're gonna go in and bust them? We're gonna raid houses in case somebody has a banned substance? Confiscate their houses? My God, if people don't see that as an abuse of force, of too much government, then we're just not communicating."

~ Charles Koch  

"Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care. ... It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record."

~ Judge Francis L. Young  

"Academic freedom really means freedom of inquiry. To be able to probe according to one’s own interest, knowledge and conscience is the most important freedom the scholar has, and part of that process is to state its results."

~ Donald Kennedy  

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

~ George Orwell  

"When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the [many] believe almost anything you want, and you can guide them."

~ Gore Vidal  

"Censors are infused with the sentiment of moral indignation – a dangerous and misleading sentiment because, by blinding those who voice it to the real reasons for their indignation, it makes them puppets whose fears can be manipulated for ends and purposes they do not foresee or intend."

~ Carey McWilliams

"Protection of political speech advanced two important democratic goals:
1) an informed citizenry that would be capable of making educated decisions on matters of public concern, and
2) a free and open marketplace of ideas wherein the truth would ultimately prevail… Only through a vigorous and spirited public debate could citizens be educated about the actions of their government and react responsibly."

~ Craig R. Smith  

"Error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it."

~ Thomas Jefferson