Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.
The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots."

~ Elbridge Gerry  

"I am certain that nothing has done so much
to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom
as the striving after this mirage of social justice."

~ Friedrich August von Hayek  

"The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. ... At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. ... Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people."

~ Grover Cleveland  

"I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic
for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all."

~ Pledge of Allegiance  

"The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice, and on the love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family. The opinion advanced in Notes on Virginia [by Thomas Jefferson] is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or, if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?"

~ Alexander Hamilton  

~ Benjamin Franklin  

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country
is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely,
one who likes his country more than the rest of us,
and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us
when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime;
he is a good citizen driven to despair.

~ H. L. Mencken  

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy,
but a love of one's country deep enough
to call her to a higher standard."

~ George McGovern  

"Americans find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another. America is the land of the free and home of the brave -- we don't need a Patriot Act, because we are already patriots. We know freedom means responsibility, but I am not sure Congress and its domestic enforcement agencies do. More often than not, new security measures enacted by the government have resulted in more violations of the citizenry than terrorists have ever done. The terrorists want us to be afraid -- well, we are not afraid. Stop wasting dollars on this program -- it is not good for America. To give up essential liberty for a little security provides neither. The right to be left alone from government intrusion is the beginning of all freedoms."

~ Eric Schaub  

"No more duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions."

~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin  

"The true patriot scrutinizes the actions of his own government with unceasing vigilance. And when his government violates the morality and rightness associated with principles of individual freedom and private property, he immediately rises in opposition to his government."

~ Jacob G. Hornberger  

"All might be free if they valued freedom,
and defended it as they should."

~ Samuel Adams  

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom
must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

~ Thomas Paine  

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather we should thank God that such men lived."

~ General George S. Patton, Jr.  

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

~ Nathan Hale