quotations about liberty
What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be preferred to all things.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE
The Crisis
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical and Historical Essays
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
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
LOUIS BRANDEIS
Olmstead v. United States
Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Authority and the Individual
The word liberty has been falsely used by persons who, being degenerately profligate in private life, and mischievous in public, had no hope left but in fomenting discord.
TACITUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty--of the indefinite expansion of possibility.
SUSAN SONTAG
Aids and Its Metaphors
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Abigail Adams, Jul. 17, 1775
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
JAMES MADISON
attributed, Quote Junkie Presidents Edition
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Lafayette, The Thomas Jefferson Papers
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 traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
When liberty is at stake, we cannot be too scrupulous; we must burnish up every precedent; we must parley upon a hair, for that hair may be a fibre of the eternal right upon which cling the destiny of millions.
C. R. WELD
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France