Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"All men are created equally free and independent,
and have certain inherent rights,
of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity;
among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty,
with the means of acquiring and possessing property,
and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety."

~ George Mason  

"Freedom of conscience is a natural right,
both antecedent and superior to all human laws
and institutions whatever;
a right which laws never gave and
a right which laws can never take away."

~ John Goodwin  

"Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking
more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression.
This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds
are essential to the wise and considered self-government."

~ Justice Robert H. Jackson  

"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society."

~ Alexander Hamilton  

"What is possible for me is possible for you."

~ Frederick Douglass  

"The right to be let alone is indeed
the beginning of all freedom."

~ Justice William O. Douglas  

"Liberty is not collective, it is personal.
All liberty is individual liberty."

~ Calvin Coolidge  

"The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor."

~ Eric Hoffer  

"He is free who lives as he wishes to live;
who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force;
whose movements to action are not impeded,
whose desires attain their purpose,
and who does not fall into that which he would avoid."

~ Epictetus  

"What shall be done with the four million slaves if they are emancipated? ... Primarily, it is a question less for man than for God -- less for human intellect than for the laws of nature to solve. It assumes that nature has erred; that the law of liberty is a mistake; that freedom, though a natural want of the human soul, can only be enjoyed at the expense of human welfare, and that men are better off in slavery than they would or could be in freedom; that slavery is the natural order of human relations, and that liberty is an experiment. What shall be done with them? Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone."

~ Frederick Douglass  

"When government accepts responsibility for people,
then people no longer take responsibility for themselves."

~ George Pataki  

"Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth
as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government
which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear."

~ Thomas Babington Macaulay  

"Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe,
and forbid men to say or write anything
against this or that opinion,
are often passed to gratify, or rather
to appease the anger of those
who cannot abide independent minds."

~ Baruch Spinoza  

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

~ Justice William J. Brennan