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Freedom

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“The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.”
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would trade all the advantages of humanity to be a fly on the wall when Franklin and Jefferson discussed liberty, Lenin and Trotsky revolution, Newton and Halley the shape of the universe, or when Darwin entertained Huxley and Lyell at Down.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Faith is born and preserved in us by preaching why Christ came, what he brought and gave to us, and the benefits we obtain when we receive him. This happens when Christian liberty — which he gives to us — is rightly taught and we are told in what way as Christians we are all kings and priests and therefore lords of all.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a constitutional right for people to own guns, but there's also a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Steve Harvey, quoted in "Clinton confuses Constitution with Declaration of Independence in gun pitch", FoxNews.com (25 February 2016)
“I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.”
Erasmus (1466–1536) first seen 1523 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni (1523), § 176, As quoted in Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1900) by Ephraim Emerton, p. 377
“A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.”
Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696) said by 1696 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defence of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.”
William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we meet our great responsibility, I believe we can not only deter aggression and create an ever more secure and widening world of security — but we can also shape, step by step, a future of liberty and opportunity across the world.”
Al Gore (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only the very young and the very old may recount their dreams at breakfast, dwell upon self, interrupt with memories of beach picnics and favorite Liberty lawn dresses and the rainbow trout in a creek near Colorado Springs. The rest of us are expected, rightly, to affect absorption in other people’s favorite dresses, other people’s trout.”
Joan Didion (1934–2021) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Joan Didion on Keeping a Notebook", The Marginalian (19 November 2012)
“The pride, the glory of Britain, and the direct end of its constitution, is political liberty.”
George III (1738–1820) said by 1820 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Essay (late 1750s), quoted in John Brooke, King George III (1972; 1974), p. 108
“Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance with the laws of the world of the senses; but it must not therefore be imagined that they desire escape from the region of law. Nothing lawless can show the least reason why it should exist, or could at best have more than an appearance of life.”
George MacDonald (1824–1905) said by 1905 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As President of Russia and the Supreme Commander, as a citizen of Russia, I will do everything to defend the country, protect the Constitution, lives and safety, liberty of our citizens.”
Vladimir Putin (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives — nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times.”
Harry Browne (1933–2006) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Libertarian stand on abortion" (21 December 1998)
“I call upon the American people to affirm with me this American Promise -- that we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated.”
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I call upon the American people to affirm with me the unhyphenated American promise that we have learned from the tragedy of that long ago experience -- forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of error shall never be made again.”
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“it’s a funny time for women. We demand a certain sensitivity. We’ve made our outward attacks at machoism, right, in favor of the new sensitive male. But we’re just at the fledgling state of our liberty where we can’t handle it. I think we ask men to be sensitive and equal, but deep down think it’s unnatural. And we really want them to be stronger than us. So you get into this paradoxical thing.”
Joni Mitchell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own labor—to the protection of law—and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.”
William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) first seen 1833 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Convention," speech in Philadelphia, (6 December 1833)
“This extremely interesting girl, after giving me a single glance from her beautiful eyes, stubbornly refused to look at me again. My vanity at once made me think that it was only so that I would be at full liberty to study her impeccable beauty. It was on this girl that I instantly set my sights, as if all Europe were only a seraglio provided for my pleasures.”
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) said by 1798 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 7, chapter 2, p. 19
“It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon.”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Yosemite (1912), chapter 12: How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
“It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive "natural liberty" in their economic activities. There is no "compact" conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.”
Tony Blair (born 1953) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In full: Tony Blair's speech, BBC News online. Final speech to the Labour Party Annual Conference as Leader (26 September 2006).
“[In cloning,] the Father and the Mother have disappeared, not in the service of an aleatory liberty of the subject, but in the service of a matrix called code.”
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The object of liberty is to give men and women a chance to be their best selves. That is its first and last purpose.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“William Penn summed up the ideal of human liberty in the remark: 'Men must either be governed by God or they must be ruled by tyrants.'”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy.”
John Wesley (1703–1791) first seen 1714 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in England in the Eighteenth Century (1714 - 1815) (1964) by J. H. Plumb, p. 94
“God gave us Lincoln and Liberty, let us fight for both.”
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A toast made by Grant before his operations in the Vicksburg Campaign, (22 February 1863); as quoted in A Popular and Authentic Life of Ulysses S. Grant (1868) by Edward Deering Mansfield
“I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism — and we've had our lesson there. I don't want to create a revolution — I just want to create a few more films.”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In response to journalist for comments on United States Attorney-General's announcement to revoke his re-entry visa, Cherbourg, England, as quoted in "Mr. Chaplin's Defense", The Guardian (23 September 1952)
“This is a story of a period between two World Wars — an interim in which insanity cut loose. Liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was kicked around somewhat.”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remember, that there is no more formidable enemy to liberty than fanaticism.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know we cannot flatter ourselves that we have attained perfection; but holding up a Republic surrounded by enemies, fortifying reason in favour of liberty, destroying prejudice and nullifying individual efforts against the public interest, demand moral and physical strengths that nature has perhaps denied to those who denounce us and those we are fighting.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) first seen 1793 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Defense of the Committee of Public Safety and Against Briez" (25 September 1793)
“You constantly allege the declaration of human rights, the principles of liberty, and you yourselves believed in it so little that you constitutionally decreed slavery.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attacking the defense of slavery, Session of National Constituent Assembly 13 May, 1791
“A dethroned king, in the Republic, is good for only two uses: either to trouble the peace of the state and threaten liberty, or to affirm both of these at the same time.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happily virtue is natural in the people, [despite] aristocratical prejudices. A nation is truly corrupt, when, after having, by degrees lost its character and liberty, it slides from democracy into aristocracy or monarchy; this is the death of the political body by decrepitude....”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am made to combat crime, not to govern it. The time is not here where good men can serve their patrie with impunity; the defenders of liberty will only be outcasts, as long as the horde of rogues is in control.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.”
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.”
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I hear from time to time people say, hey, wait a second, we have civil liberties we have to worry about. But don't forget the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive, and that's what we're going to have to do.”
Mitt Romney (born 1947) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fox News, Republican Presidential Candidate Debate, Durham, NH, 2007-09-05
“As I said last year, each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people. Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty, that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project
“But liberty, to be loved on the surface is worthless”
Immortal Technique (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today Israel and India are embattled democracies, sharing values and the challenge of terrorism. United in our quest for life, liberty and peace our joint determination to fight for these values can inspire our hopes for a better future for our people.”
Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sharon pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi, 9 September 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/09sharon2.htm
“Liberty is its own reward.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (9 September 1912)
“Do you never stop to reflect just what it is that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing peoples, and her example, her assistance, her encouragement, has thrilled two continents in this Western World with all the fine impulses which have built up human liberty on both sides of the water.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on Military Preparedness, Pittsburgh (29 January 1916)
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Pledge of Allegiance, ultimately, is coffee for elementary school students. "...And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. FUCK, I'm at SCHOOL! Can we say it again? I need a second cup.”
Lewis Black (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Great Society (May 22, 1964). Archived from the original on January 10, 2021.
“They came here—the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened—to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source