Liberty is a thing of the spirit-to be free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, and to speak without fear-free to challenge wrong and oppression with surety of justice.
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st American President
Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America’s problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain
—John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
If you take a worm’s eye view of the ills in American life and our foreign relations; you may worry that we are entering the decline and fall of the greatest nation in history. If you take a bird’s eye view you will see the increasing skills, growing productivity, and the expansion of education and understanding, with improving health and growing strength all over our nation. And from whence came this strength? It lies in freedom of men’s initiative and the rewards of their efforts. It comes from our devotion to liberty and religious faith. We will have no decline and fall of this nation, provided we stand guard against the evils which would weaken these forces.
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st American President
Reason and virtue alone can bestow liberty.
—Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83) British Statesman
The spirit of liberty is not, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any one, whether high or low, should be wronged or trampled under foot.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
The history of liberty is the history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian Physician, Educator
They who say all men are equal speak an undoubted truth, if they mean that all have an equal right to liberty, to their property, and to their protection of the laws.—But they are mistaken if they think men are equal in their station and employments, since they are not so by their talents.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
What a pity we don’t pursue the salvation of humans with the same verve we pursue the salvation of animals
—Unknown
I would rather not be a king than to forfeit my liberty.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.
—Angela Davis (b.1944) American Political Activist, Academic
Safe popular freedom consists of four things, the diffusion of liberty, of intelligence, of property, and of conscientiousness, and cannot be compounded of any three out of the four.
—Joseph Cook
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. From him who will not give her all, she will have nothing. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes has burned into the victim’s heart, he will know no other smile but hers.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
—James Madison (1751–1836) American Founding Father, Statesman, President
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English Politician, Philosopher
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Liberty consists in wholesome restraint.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer