Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Stuart Mill

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

James K. Polk

No union exists between church and state, and perfect freedom of opinion is guaranteed to all sects and creeds.

James Russell Lowell

Freedom needs all her poets; it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.

James Russell Lowell

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

James Russell Lowell

Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward.

James Russell Lowell

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

Larry Flynt

Privacy is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution as freedom of speech is in the First Amendment.

Larry Flynt

Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like.

Friedrich Durrenmatt

Humans need justice in the here and now and grace in the thereafter. Justice in the here and now is possible only without freedom,and grace in the thereafter only through the freedom of God.

Friedrich Engels

Freedom is the recognition of necessity.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Our submission to general principles is necessary because we cannot be guided in our practical action by full knowledge and evaluation of the consequences. So long as men are not omniscient, the only way in which freedom can be given to the individual is by such general rules to delimit the sphere in which the decision is his. There can be no freedom if the government is not limited to particular kinds of action but can use its powers in any ways which serve particular ends.

Friedrich August von Hayek

The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.

Friedrich August von Hayek

A society that does not recognise that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances, but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad ... Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.

Friedrich August von Hayek

It is because freedom means the renunciation of direct control of individual efforts that a free society can make use of so much more knowledge than the mind of the wisest ruler could comprehend.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.

Friedrich August von Hayek

I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

Friedrich Schiller

Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.

Friedrich Schiller

Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains.

Friedrich Schiller

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

Friedrich Schiller

Freedom exists only with power.

Friedrich Schiller

Where there is much freedom there is much error.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self reliant enough to be free.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Liberty requires opportunity to make a living--a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

Luis Bunuel

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

Ludwig van Beethoven

To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne.