Famous Quotes & Sayings

Thomas B. Macaulay

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

Thomas Hobbes

I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty , and on the other side for too much Authority , 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.

Thomas Hobbes

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Thomas Hobbes

What reason is there that he which laboreth much, and, sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all he gets, seeing the one hath no more protection from the commonwealth than the other?

Thomas Hobbes

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.

Thomas Hobbes

There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.

Thomas Jefferson

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.

Thomas Jefferson

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

Thomas Friedman

Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

Herbert Spencer

Liberty is not the right of one, but of all.

Herbert Spencer

The liberty the citizen enjoys is to be measured not by governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the paucity of restraints it imposes upon him.

Herbert Spencer

All socialism involves slavery.

Herbert Spencer

Society exists for the benefit of its members - not the members for the benefit of society.

H. L. Mencken

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.

Jesse Jackson

I do not deny the allegation, I deny the allegator.

James Buchan

Liberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.

James A. Baldwin

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

Herbert Marcuse

The existing liberties and the existing gratifications are tied to the requirements of repression: they themselves become instruments of repression.

Franz Kafka

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

George Herbert

A beane in liberty is better then a comfit in prison.

George W. Bush

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

George W. Bush

This young century will be liberty's century.

George W. Bush

The advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world.

George W. Bush

Liberty can change habits.

George Orwell

The English are probably more capable than most peoples of making revolutionary change without bloodshed. In England, if anywhere,it would be possible to abolish poverty without destroying liberty.

George Orwell

Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?

Jean Cocteau

I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty.

Frederick Douglass

Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document!

Frederick Douglass

Liberty for all; chains for none.