quotations about liberty
O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well to leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of Fate, lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel stay those who to thy sacred portals come to waste the gifts of Freedom.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Unguarded Gates"
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to James Madison, Mar. 2, 1788
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
Still today, 70 years after our country emerged from the shadows of World War II, individual liberty is disproportionately attained and withheld across our communities. We must be aware of the ways, overt or subtle, that those with power systematically marginalize and devalue those without.
OMAR PADILLA & ROB BARRON
"Why Latinos are fighting for one another", The Des Moines Register, June 13, 2016
A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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.
The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.
GEORGE SUTHERLAND
Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 1938
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
An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics ... without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe.
JAMES MADISON
First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1809
For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.
JOHN MILTON
The History of Britain
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
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds -- but with that word realized -- with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
speech at the trial of C. B. Reynolds for blasphemy, May 1887
On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are created equal" a self-evident truth, but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim "a self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day--for burning fire-crackers!
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George Robertson, Aug. 15, 1855
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
If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor.
G. S. HILLARD
attributed, Day's Collacon
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Archibald Stewart, Dec. 23, 1791
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
U. S. Declaration of Independence, Jul. 4, 1776
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Man and Superman
For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE
The Crisis
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
WOODROW WILSON
speech at New York Press Club, Sep. 9, 1912