quotations about liberty
The spirit of liberty must be cherished, if we would elevate, purify, and strengthen the fibre of the nation.
ARNAUD DE L'ARIEGE
attributed, Day's Collacon
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE
The Crisis
A lion is at liberty who can follow the laws of his own nature, who can eat when his stomach tells him, who can sleep when his fierce eyes grow weary, who can scratch long furrows in a forest tree when his claws feel so disposed. He is not at liberty when he lives in a cage, is fed on horseflesh at 4 p.m., and is compelled at the point of a red-hot poker to spell P-I-G -- PIG, in the presence of a diverted crowd.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Intellectual Slavery
The want of liberty is witnessed in hushed voices and low whisperings; liberty bursts into unshackled eloquence.
LUCY BARTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Abigail Adams, Jul. 17, 1775
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
GIDEON J. TUCKER
Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B.
Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Authority and the Individual
What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Lafayette, The Thomas Jefferson Papers
Liberty is potential. To create a free being is to place before it the problem of its destiny.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
Establish liberty on a rock of brass.
MAXIMILIEN DE ROBESPIERRE
report of the 18 Pluvoise, Year II
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
EARL WARREN
United States v. Robel
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to W.S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
There are two kinds of people I could anathematize with a better weapon than St. Peter's -- those who dare deprive others of their liberty, and those who suffer others to do it.
JOHN LEDYARD
Travels and Adventures of John Ledyard
The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Le Deuxieme Sexe
Liberty ... is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed upon man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall a man.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Through too much liberty all things run to ruin and confusion. Liberty in the mind is a sign of goodness; in the tongue, of foolishness; in the hand, of theft; in our life, of want of grace.
M. PARKER
attributed, Day's Collacon