Famous Quotes & Sayings

Frances Wright

To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing ...

George Washington

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

George Washington

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.

George Washington

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

George Washington

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Santayana

Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.

George Santayana

A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.

George Santayana

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.

George Pataki

We need a President that all Americans can respect, not a celebrity who uses words like freedom and liberty like they are a punchline in a reality show.

George Orwell

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

George Orwell

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Neale Donald Walsch

Your personal freedom to experience yourself and life as you wish is not being limited. Step into your choices and stop telling yourself that you can't, when what you really mean is that you don't want other people to feel the way you think that are going to feel when they see you making the choices you really want to make.

Mike Lee

The USA Freedom Act does not propose that we abandon any and all efforts to analyze telephone data, what we're talking about here is a program that currently contemplates the collection of all data just as a routine matter and the aggregation of all that data in one database. That causes concerns for a lot of people... There's a lot of potential for abuse.

Marcel Proust

As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.

Joseph Addison

Oh, Liberty! thou goddess heavenly bright! Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight! Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy.

Jose Marti

The dagger plunged in the name of freedom is plunged into the breast of freedom.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

The well being of democracies regardless of their type and status is dependent on one small technical detail: The right to vote. Everything else is secondary.

Joni Mitchell

We love our lovin'....but not like we love our freedom.

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.

James Thurber

When man gives up on reforming and inspiring society he also gives up his freedom.

James Otis

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.

James Otis

Can there be any liberty where property is taken away without consent?

James Mackintosh

It is not because we have been free, but because we have a right to be free, that we ought to demand freedom. Justice and liberty have neither birth nor race, youth nor age.

James Madison

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness.

James Madison

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.