Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical,
to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts."

~ Bergan Evans  

"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  

"Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech,
all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions
are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery.
If the press is not free;
if speech is not independent and untrammeled;
if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear,
it makes no difference under what form of government you live,
you are a subject and not a citizen."

~ William E. Borah  

"Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?"

~ John Adams  

"Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is,
whether ours is a federal or consolidated government;
a constitutional or absolute one;
a government resting solidly on the basis
of the sovereignty of the States,
or on the unrestrained will of a majority;
a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones,
in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail."

~ John C. Calhoun  

"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

~ Noël Coward  

"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  

"The peak of tolerance is most readily achieved by those who are not burdened by convictions."

~ Alexander Chase  

"I love agitation and investigation and glory
in defending unpopular truth against popular error."

~ James A. Garfield  

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

~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus  

"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  

"Increasingly constructive doubt is
the sign of advancing civilization."

~ Jerome D. Frank  

"Whosoever wishes to know about the world
must learn about it in its particular details.
Knowledge is not intelligence.
In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected.
Change alone is unchanging.
The same road goes both up and down.
The beginning of a circle is also its end.
Not I, but the world says it: all is one.
And yet everything comes in season."

~ Heraclitus  

"The First Amendment does not require students to leave their religion at the schoolhouse door. … If students can wear T-shirts advertising sports teams, rock groups or politicians, they can also wear T-shirts that promote religion. … Religion is too important to our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools."

~ Bill Clinton  

~ United Nations