Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Milton

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.

John Milton

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

John Milton

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

John Milton

For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: 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: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.

John Milton

For so I created them free and free they must remain.

Norman Cousins

In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.

Nina Simone

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Nina Simone

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

Mike Tyson

Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent.

Miguel de Cervantes

Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on 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 for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.

Thomas Jefferson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Thomas Jefferson

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Thomas Jefferson

[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.

Thomas Jefferson

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

Thomas Jefferson

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Thomas Jefferson

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

Thomas Jefferson

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.

Thomas Jefferson

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Thomas Jefferson

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state

Thomas Jefferson

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Thomas Jefferson

The only security of all is in a free press.

Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson

The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights

Thomas Jefferson

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

Edie Brickell

You feel like a prisoner if you don't create. You're jailed up inside of yourself.

Edith Hamilton

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.