Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Locke

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

John Lindsay

Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I always had an aversion to your apostles of freedom; each but sought for himself freedom to do what he liked.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Only law can give us freedom.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Merely to breathe freely does not mean to live.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.

Jimmy Carter

Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people.

Jimmy Carter

I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.

Jimmy Carter

The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.

Jimmy Carter

Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life...

Henry David Thoreau

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

Menzies Campbell

The law on glorification may well have unwelcome implications for freedom of speech, but it will do nothing to improve public safety.

Felix Magath

The last matches had hurt our self-confidence, you could see that. We were nervous at first. But the 1-0 freed us up and I think we played a pretty good match after that.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Freedom is from within.

Frank Lloyd Wright

A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.

Lord Acton

The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.

Lord Acton

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Lyn Nofziger

As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

Paul Twitchell

In my soul, I am free.

Paul Wellstone

If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them.

A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or worship and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God's most precious will. . . . There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and strength.

Pope John Paul II

Let us not accept violence as the way of peace. Let us instead begin by respecting true freedom: the resulting peace will be able to satisfy the world's expectations, for it will be a peace built on justice, a peace founded on the incomparable dignity of the free human being.

Pope John Paul II

Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.

Pope Francis

May the power of Christ, which brings freedom and service, be felt in so many hearts afflicted by war, persecution and slavery.

Pope Francis

I think both freedom of religion and freedom of expression are both fundamental human rights, everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what Pope Francis thinks for the common good... we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending.

Pete Townshend

I'M FREE! - I'm free, And freedom tastes of reality, I'm free - I'm free, An' I'm waiting for you to follow me.

Phil Robertson

But it also came at a significant cost for human rights, and today's restricted freedom of expression, self-censorship and stunted multi-party democracy.

Peter Marshall

May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.