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“In Selma as elsewhere we seek and pray for peace. We seek order. We seek unity. But we will not accept the peace of stifled rights, or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest. For peace cannot be purchased at the cost of liberty.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am of the opinion that all who can should vote for the most intelligent, honest, and conscientious men eligible to office, irrespective of former party opinions, who will endeavour to make the new constitutions and the laws passed under them as beneficial as possible to the true interests, prosperity, and liberty of all classes and conditions of the people.”
Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to General James Longstreet (29 October 1867), as quoted in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (1924), p. 269.
“Liberty is never safe.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) said by 1898 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said to the Countess Russell and recorded in her diary, Lady John Russell: A Memoir (1910), edited by Desmond McCarthy and Agatha Russell. p. 252
“I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the principle of the Liberal Party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford (December 1878) as quoted in "Gladstone's Conundrums; The Statesman Answers Sundry Interesting Questions" in The New York Times (9 February 1879)
“We must fall back upon the broad, the incorruptible power of national liberty; that we decline to recognise any class whatever, be they peers or be they gentry, be they what you like, as entitled to direct the destinies of this nation against the will of the nation.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Pathhead, Scotland (23 March 1880), quoted in Political Speeches in Scotland, March and April 1880 (1880), p. 268
“What is meant by "Boycotting?" In the first place, it is combined intimidation. In the second place, it is combined intimidation made use of for the purpose of destroying the private liberty of choice by fear of ruin and starvation.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 May 1882)
“I am convinced that upon every religious, as well as upon every political ground, the true and the wise course is not to deal out religious liberty by halves, by quarters, and by fractions; but to deal it out entire, and to leave no distinction between man and man on the ground of religious differences from one end of the land to the other.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Except from a speech in the House of Commons (26 April 1883) in support of the atheist Charles Bradlaugh being permitted to take his seat in Parliament.
“I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my politics into a sentence; I was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to John Morley (27 December 1891), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. Vol. III (1880-1898) (1903), pp. 474–475
“I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians — however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant’s lash, and the cries of his tortured victims.”
Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) first seen 1838 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (4 May 1838), quoted in Shapers of the Great Debate on the Civil War : A Biographical Dictionary (2005) by Dan Monroe and Bruce Tap, p. 255
“Let but the public mind become once thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off the canker-worms.”
Horace Mann (1796–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A hero can capture the secret imagination of a people, and so be good for the vitality of his nation; a hero embodies the fantasy and so allows each private mind the liberty to consider its fantasy and find a way to grow. Each mind can become more conscious of its desire and waste less strength in hiding from itself.”
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An individual who finds that he enjoys seeing others in positions of lesser liberty understands that he has no claim whatever to this enjoyment.”
John Rawls (1921–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The suppression of liberty is always likely to be irrational.”
John Rawls (1921–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An intolerant sect has no right to complain when it is denied an equal liberty. … A person’s right to complain is limited to principles he acknowledges himself.”
John Rawls (1921–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Believing that slaves could not be enlightened without developing in them a longing for liberty, not a few masters maintained that the more brutish the bondmen the more pliant they become for purposes of exploitation. It was this class of slaveholders that finally won the majority of southerners to their way of thinking and determined that Negroes should not be educated.”
Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), Chapter 1
“There's nothing to gain when there's nothing to be lost. There's nothing to gain if you stay behind and count the cost. Make the decision that you can be who you can be, You can be. Tasting the fruit come to the Liberty Tree.”
Peter Gabriel (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s still unfathomable that Russia went from joyously celebrating the end of totalitarianism to electing a KGB lieutenant-colonel in just nine years. Never take your liberty for granted, and be careful whom you vote for because it may be the last election you’ll ever have.”
Garry Kasparov (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.”
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Americans recoiled from the repugnant spectacle of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville to promote their un-American “blood and soil” ideology. There is nothing in their hate-driven racism that can match the strength of a nation conceived in liberty and comprising 323 million souls of different origins and opinions who are equal under the law.”
John McCain (1936–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The House of Lords] is the right hon. Gentleman's poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to. And we are told that this is a great revising Chamber, the safeguard of liberty in the country. Talk about mockeries and shams. Was there ever such a sham as that?”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (26 June 1907)
“It is impossible in words to describe our sense of gratitude and the thrill of pride with which we always think about the way in which the Empire came to our assistance when we risked the life of these islands upon the struggle for liberty in Europe.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1055 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to the Imperial War Cabinet (20 March 1917), quoted in War Memoirs, Volume I (1938), p. 1055
“They have got rid of me for a time...but it will only be for a time. I am out to fight in exactly the same cause to which I have consecrated my strength during the whole of my life—the cause of the people, the downtrodden and the oppressed. I hope that the people will stand with me in fighting the great battle of liberty and progress.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Cardiff station (9 November 1922), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 35
“Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (10 May 1928)
“Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: International Liberal Conference (July 1928)
“I still look forward to an awakening in the national spirit of Britain and France which will rouse and inspire democracy throughout the world to a great combined effort to save liberty from utter overthrow in our generation.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Llandudno (19 January 1939), quoted in The Times (20 January 1939), p. 14
“The deep-rooted tradition of personal liberty which has long held sway in Britain made it a matter of the greatest difficulty for the Government to secure general consent for the exercise of its common-law right to call on all its citizens to carry out such tasks as it might lay on them for the national security.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hope and optimism are irrepressible but there is a deep underlying premonition that the opposition to change is likely to be vicious. Often the anxious question is asked: will such an oppressive regime really give us democracy? And the answer has to be: democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not 'given', it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.”
Aung San Suu Kyi (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.”
Earl Warren (1891–1974) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Columbia University (14 January 1954)
“The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.”
Earl Warren (1891–1974) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Spano v. New York 360 U.S. 321 (1959)
“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The speech was not published until printed a version of it in 1816. The version of the speech that is known today first appeared in print in Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, a biography of Henry by W…
“Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. … Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788)
“Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?”
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788).
“When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object.”
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Thursday, 5 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan…
“The will is a unity of two different aspects or moments: first, the individual’s ability to abstract from every specific condition and, by negating it, to return to the absolute liberty of the pure ego; secondly, the individual’s act of freely adopting a concrete condition, freely affirming his existence as a particular, limited ego. P. 185”
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) said by 1979 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This approach emphasizes what was once familiar enough to all Americans—and what we are now in danger of forgetting—that government derives its power from men; that rights of life and liberty are inalienable; that these rights are not something that government graciously confers upon men, but things no government can take away from men.”
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are limits on liberty, as there are limits on authority. The broad principle of those limits is generally recognized and accepted; no liberties may be exercised so as to injure others or injure the community.”
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must demonstrate that it is possible to overcome poverty, misery and decay by democratic means, and we must ourselves believe, and must show others, that our American tradition of the dignity and liberty of the individual is not a luxury for easy times but is the basic source of the strength and security of a successful society.”
Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.”
Alan Keyes (born 1950) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Iowa straw poll speech (14 August 1999)
“How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb?”
Alan Keyes (born 1950) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Virginia high school appearance (28 February 2000)
“Why do they want to disarm the people? Well, they want to disarm the people on the assumption that we are not responsible enough to be trusted with the means to defend ourselves--regardless of the truth that our Founders thought that this is an essential prerequisite and precondition of liberty.”
Alan Keyes (born 1950) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rally in Idaho Falls, Idaho (12 May 2000)
“Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay, The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away: Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.”
Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution.”
Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech before the Chamber of Commerce, Elmira, New York (3 May 1907); published in Addresses and Papers of Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, 1906–1908 (1908), p. 139
“While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.”
Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of May 1908, quoted in "Reauthorization of The Civil Rights Division of The United States Department of Justice" (15 May 2003) US House of Representatives.
“The exceptional nature of its limitations places in a strong light the general conception that liberty of the press, historically considered and taken up by the Federal Constitution, has meant, principally, although not exclusively, immunity from previous restraints or censorship.”
Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
“The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. … the press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.”
Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , 303 U.S. 444 (1938).
“The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”
Ron Paul (born 1935) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freedom Under Siege (1987).
“There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty.”
Ron Paul (born 1935) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Patriot Act, 2003
“Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.”
“I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe.”
Ron Paul (born 1935) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Texas Straight Talk: On Reinstating the Draft (16 February 2009)
“Our liberty is neither Greek nor Roman; but essentially English. It has a character of its own,—a character which has taken a tinge from the sentiments of the chivalrous ages, and which accords with the peculiarities of our manners and of our insular situation. It has a language, too, of its own, and a language singularly idiomatic, full of meaning to ourselves, scarcely intelligible to strangers.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'History', The Edinburgh Review (May 1828), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1860), pp. 252-253