Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Laws do not persuade
just because they threaten."

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca  

"Knowledge is power."

~ Sir Francis Bacon  

"Let us consider the effect that coercion produces upon the mind of him against whom it is employed. It cannot begin with convincing; it is no argument. It begins with producing the sensation of pain, and the sentiment of distaste. It begins with violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to be impressed. It includes in it a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is important, but he really punishes me because his argument is weak."

~ William Godwin  

"English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on
the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised
democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour
of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family,
each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its
self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own
affairs and think its own thoughts."

~ James Anthony Froude  

"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  

"A race of altruists is necessarily a race of slaves.
A race of free men is necessarily a race of egoists."

~ Max Stirner  

"A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him."

~ Alexis de Tocqueville  

"Authority without wisdom
is like a heavy axe without an edge,
fitter to bruise than polish."

~ Anne Bradstreet  

"The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised."

~ George D. Herron  

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."

~ Charles de Gaulle  

"Governments have ever been known to hold a high hand over the education of the people. They know, better than anyone else, that their power is based almost entirely on the school. Hence, they monopolize it more and more."

~ Francisco Ferrer  

"Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything."

~ Frank Dane  

"You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants."

~ Harry Browne  

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.
Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.
Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.
Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

~ Patrick Henry  

"There have existed,
in every age and every country,
two distinct orders of men --
the lovers of freedom and
the devoted advocates of power."

~ Robert Y. Hayne