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Quotations about
Freedom and Liberty
The cry of man vibrating through the ages has been for freedom. ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
To put the issue as simply as possible: we maintain freedom not in order to indulge error but in order to discover truth... ~Henry Steele Commager, "Free Enterprise in Ideas," Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, 1954 [This essay was originally published in The Saturday Review, but I'm not sure if it was 1947 or 1952.
Freedom begins between the ears. ~Edward Abbey
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. ~Thomas Paine, 1795
The object of liberty is to give men and women a chance to be their best selves. That is its first and last purpose. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
If freedom is really the organizing principle of our society, then we cannot forget that it is not illusion, propaganda and sedatives, but truth, and truth alone, that makes us free. ~Adlai Stevenson, in LIFE, "Eloquent Guides to America's National Purpose," 1960
LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
The rising People, hot and out of breath,
Roared round the palace: "Liberty or death!"
"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."
Martha Braymance.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book, 1906
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it. ~Abraham Lincoln, 1859
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~Adlai Stevenson, 1952
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936
...the great heart of the people beats for freedom. ~David Wilmot, 1850
Though hearts be torn asunder, for Freedom we will fight... ~Lucy Larcom, "The Nineteenth of April," 1861
We have to call it "freedom": who'd want to die for "a lesser tyranny"? ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1963
Liberty is just a mixture of freedom, restraint, and protection. ~Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818–1885) [spelling standardized
Liberty has as many chains as slavery, but the golden chains of liberty decorate, and the iron chains of slavery degrade. ~Austin O'Malley (1858–1932), Thoughts of a Recluse, 1898
She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom! ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, "A Flood of Sunshine," The Scarlet Letter: A Romance, 1850
Freedom is beyond the price of any earthly cheer... ~Lucy Larcom, "The Nineteenth of April," 1861
Most people want security in this world, not liberty. ~H. L. Mencken
We feel free when we escape — even if it be but from the frying pan into the fire. ~Eric Hoffer
Here, he could exist; "but mere existence is not enough," he sighed; "to live, one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower!" ~Hans Christian Andersen, "The Butterfly," translated by Caroline Peachey
Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. ~The Waterbury American, 1920s
But freedom is not enough. ~Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965
Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty! ~Lucy Larcom, "The Nineteenth of April," 1861
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. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it. Do these gentlemen dream that in the year 1912 we have discovered a unique exception to the movement of human history? Do they dream that the whole character of those who exercise power has changed, that it is no longer a temptation? Above all things else, do they dream that men are bred great enough now to be a Providence over the people over whom they preside? ~Woodrow Wilson
I catch, through the mists of life's river,
A glimpse of the time to be,
When the chain from the bondman rusted,
Shall leave him erect and free...
~Alice Carey, "The Time to Be," c.1847
The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. ~Adlai Stevenson
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, 1755
O Liberty... is it well
To leave the gates unguarded?...
~Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "Unguarded Gates," c.1891
To make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man. ~Mark Twain
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow-man, without at last finding the other end of it about his own neck. ~Frederick Douglass, 1883
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. ~George Washington, 1788
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations: but on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes. If we consider the peculiar situation of the United States, and what are the sources of that diversity of sentiments which pervades its inhabitants, we shall find great danger to fear, that the same causes may terminate here, in the same fatal effects, which they produced in those republics. This danger ought to be wisely guarded against. ~James Madison, 1788
The people of the Piney Grove establishment, both white and black, had been free for nearly a generation. The whites had been freed from the curse of being slave-holders, and the blacks had been freed from the curse of being held in bondage. ~Silas X. Floyd (1869–1923), "Thanksgiving at Piney Grove," Floyd's Flowers, 1905
No people can permanently remain free unless it possesses the stern self-control and resolution necessary to put down anarchy. Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive; special privilege for the few and special privilege for the many are alike profoundly anti-social; the fact that unlimited individualism is ruinous, in no way alters the fact that absolute state ownership and regimentation spells ruin of a different kind. All of this ought to be trite to reasonably intelligent people — even if they are professional intellectuals — but in practice an endless insistence on these simple fundamental truths is endlessly necessary. ~Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
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, 1787
Men fight for liberty, and win it with hard knocks.
Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools.
And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
~D. H. Lawrence, "Liberty's Old Old Story," Pansies, 1929
Power is duty; freedom is responsibility. ~Marie Dubsky, Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916), translated by Mrs Annis Lee Wister, 1882
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. ~Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Most will give up an acre of freedom for a closet of security. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild, frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you." ~Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, 1847
When will come the declaration
That will make us wholly free?
When the July independence
Of our fuller liberty?
We are cramped with heavier taxes
Than could ever rest on tea;
We are bound by chains, close welded
To degrading slavery.
Where is freedom, bought by struggle,
Which should pæan out its glee?
Where, oh men who claim the nation,
Can this precious purchase be?
Floundering in the cup of license,
Parasite of industry,
We have found it, heavy-hearted,
Linked to dregs of misery.
On some Fourth, with cannon booming,
Will the old cup burst in three;
An emancipated people
Shout, rejoicing, "We are free!
Free from all the past dishonor;
Free with wrong to disagree;
Free to ask a July blessing
On our rescued purity."
~Sara Louisa Vickers Oberholtzer (1841–1930), "A Fourth of July Prophecy," Souvenirs of Occasions, 1892
First, freedom is never free; in fact, it has always been bought at great cost, whether on the battlefield, in the legislative assembly, in the law courts, in the schoolroom, or in synagogues, temples or churches. Also, it is never self-perpetuating, but has had to be rewon again and again... ~Author unknown, 1960s
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. ~Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Milton," 1825
The great battle of Freedom is not ended. It has just begun. ~David Wilmot, 1850
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