Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Freedom

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“The United States has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Instead, wicked men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln.”
David Davis (justice) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1866-04-03, opinion in Ex parte Milligan
“I'm in the law-making business, but I can't fix your neighbors with more government force, more clogged courts, more jail, more taxes or fines, more loss of property, and less liberty. My job as a lawmaker is to repeal unjust laws and expose corruption in government, not make more of it.”
Jonathon D. Hill (born 1985) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: There Are No Shortcuts to Good Manners (7 September 2019)
“We face the spectre of a transactional world, devoid of principle, accountability and transparency, where state sovereignty, territorial integrity and liberty are surrendered for respite from coercion and intimidation, or economic entrapment dressed up as economic reward. This is not a world we want - for us, our neighbours or our region. It’s certainly not a world we want for our children.”
Scott Morrison (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Diversity obligates to us a Christian identity well accented and deep, because the more I feel secure in my faith, the more I am capable of having that interior liberty in my relationship with whatever person. When I feel weak in faith, I am afraid of the other beliefs, other religions, they may detour my own security. The difference of religion should invite us to be more mature in faith!”
Redovino Rizzardo (1939–2016) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bishop Explains How to Join Religious Liberty and Ecumenism (14 May 2013)
“America’s daughters are just as capable of defending liberty as her sons.”
Tammy Duckworth (born 1968) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tammy Duckworth in [Https://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/tammy-duckworths-dnc-speech-text-video-080673%3F%20amp%3Dtrue Speech at the Democratic National Convention focused on jobs and her military service.] (September…
“Furthermore, the spirit of man knows no barrier, never dies and can be projected to any part of the world. This being so I am confident that the ideals of social justice and individual liberty which I hold dear will continue to be projected beyond the prison walls and bars until they are realized in our lifetime.”
Obafemi Awolowo (1909–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking to Justice George Sowemimo at the Treasonable Felony trial of 1963 in Lagos.
“British and American concepts of individual liberty are not universals that can be immediately understood and desired by everyone, as is often claimed. They are themselves the cultural inheritance of certain tribes and nations.”
Yoram Hazony (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My countrymen, Liberty does not go to confession: we leave distinctions of that kind to the Inquisitors of the Holy Office; we have a law here which says that any honest man who lives on the soil of our country is able to take part in the nomination of his magistrates and his representatives: you should obey that law.”
Pasquale Paoli (1725–1807) first seen 1725 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply to a deputation from Isola Rossa before the elections to the Cosulta, who had asked Paoli whether a Jew who had settled in Isola Rossa should be allowed to vote (1762), quoted in Peter Adam Thrasher, Pasquale Paol…
“The countryside of France is cultivated but the masses there have no return from their labours. There are more cooking pots and kitchen spits in England, Switzerland and Holland than in all the rest of Europe. In those places you do not see a ragged man or an emaciated countenance. The miracles of Liberty are more frequent, more grand and more useful than those of Saint Anthony of Padua.”
Pasquale Paoli (1725–1807) first seen 1725 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1 August 1787), quoted in Peter Adam Thrasher, Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero, 1725–1807 (1970), p. 172
“It is economism to allow material gain to obscure the danger that we may forfeit liberty, variety, and justice and that the concentration of power may grow, and it is also economism to forget that people do not live by cheaper vacuum cleaners alone but by other and higher things which may wither in the shadows of giant industries and monopolies.”
Wilhelm Röpke (1899–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ignorance gave this release the name of death, but properly it is the soul's birth and a charter that makes for her liberty.”
Thomas Vaughan (philosopher) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“May no young man ever again be faced with the choice between violating his conscience by co-operating in competitive mass-slaughter or separating himself from those who, endeavouring to serve liberty, democracy, humanity can find no better way than to conscript young men to kill.”
Emily Greene Balch (1867–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“States are not created or destroyed, and frontiers redrawn or obliterated, by argument and majority votes; nations are freed, united, or broken by blood and iron, and not by a generous application of liberty and tomato-sauce; violence is the instrument of national movements.”
Lewis Namier (1888–1960) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals (1944), p. 31
“Peaceful revolutions are slow but sure. It takes time to leaven a great unwieldy mass like this nation with the leavening ideas of justice and liberty, but the evolution is all the more certain in its results because it is so slow.”
Susette La Flesche (1854–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tzars and Empresses, drainers of the people's life-blood are no more! and no more do they "grace" the "royal" box. All space is the people's. They grace the house from pit to gallery. The sparkle of diamonds and precious stones, symbol of tears and slavery, have given place to sparkle of happy eyes, new-lit with the fires of liberty.”
Rose Pastor Stokes (1879–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His name will live as long as there are and will continue to be rebels who struggle for genuine, true liberty.”
Mollie Steimer (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kentucky, which fished the halter for liberty in the person of John Brown (abolitionist), has strangled her again, through her representative in the Presidential chair!”
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The march of events has at length brought us face to face with the question which cannot be said to be one of public expediency and of military necessity. To-day the question presented to us is one of abstract right and wrong. The republican party must proclaim as its watchword universal liberty if it ever hopes to win, and if it ever repudiates that watchword it must die.”
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our history, the history of our fathers, who to a man loved liberty yet sustained slavery, who prayed that justice might be established in the time to come yet secured the oppression of the present, and who said the men who come after us will secure it.”
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All we want to-day is to have the temple erected to liberty perfect and entire. There is but one way for the right to go, that is straight ahead, whatever may stand in our way.”
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Please picture me now as one of these circus-chariot-ladies, with one hand driving an exciting tandem, — arts and law—and with the other hand holding aloft two streaming banners, —love and liberty.”
Crystal Eastman (1881–1928) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vassar Class of 1903 Fourth Annual Bulletin, May 1907
“The Statue of Liberty is an extension of a tradition that seems to embody the contradictions in America's promise, and a reminder that its promises have not always been extended to us. As the narrator in James Baldwin's 1960 short story "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" puts it, "I would never know what this statue meant to others, she had always been an ugly joke for me.”
Clint Smith (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Precisely as water flows to a level when obstructions are removed, just so will social relations flow to equitable conditions when restrictions are swept away. And precisely also as liberty comes in does the assertion of “rights” go out.”
Dyer Lum (1839–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we can acknowledge the failures of the past alongside its squandered potential, we can also remember and apply our insights and learnings to our present. It is a way we can envision becoming a better people, capable as a nation of emerging from the shadows of our own creation to fulfill the promise of liberty and justice for all.”
Rudy Ruiz first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Publishers Weekly, December 2, 2022
“Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy.”
Donald Kagan (1932–2021) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Matthew Kaminski, "'Democracy May Have Had Its Day'", The Wall Street Journal (April 26, 2013)
“God help the human race if you thugs are its fighters for liberty.”
Cyril M. Kornbluth (1923–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy is a journey that every nation mindful of advancing the liberty of its citizens must undertake.”
Goodluck Jonathan (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anarchists are social revolutionaries, who seek a stateless, classless, voluntary, cooperative federation of decentralized communes-based upon social ownership, individual liberty and autonomous self-management of social and economic life.”
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is [AI] gonna be like the printing press that diffused knowledge, power, and learning widely across the landscape that empowered ordinary, everyday individuals that led to greater flourishing, that led above all two greater liberty? Or is it gonna be more like the atom bomb – huge technological breakthrough, but the consequences (severe, terrible) continue to haunt us to this day?”
Sam Altman (born 1985) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Sam Altman warns AI could kill us all. But he still wants the world to use it (October 31, 2023)
“We have a monarchy, the best form of government for rational and durable liberty.”
Henry Grattan (1746–1820) first seen 1793 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Irish House of Commons (10 January 1793), quoted in The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons of Ireland, The Fourth Session of the Fifth Parliament in …
“But, that these measures, this general plan of conduct should be pursued by Ireland, with a fixed, steady, and unalterable resolution, to stand or fall with Great Britain. Whenever Great Britain, therefore, should be clearly involved in war, it is my idea that Ireland should grant her a decided and unequivocal support; except, that war should be carried on against her own liberty.”
Henry Grattan (1746–1820) first seen 1794 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Irish House of Commons (21 January 1794), quoted in The Speeches of The Right Honourable Henry Grattan, in the Irish, and in the Imperial Parliament, Vol. III (1822), pp. 116-117
“The Convention’s case-law has proved to be a force of reform for national legislation and domestic law in general. Especially, concerning Greece, religious liberty, property rights, and fair trial guarantees have been more effectively safeguarded thanks to the implementation of the Court’sjudgments.”
Katerina Sakellaropoulou (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“James P. Byrd, The challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecution, and the Bible (Mercer University Press, C.E.2002) (accessed on Google Books on July 20, C.E.2009)”
Artaxerxes I of Persia (501–424 BC) said by 424 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” Armour said. “We’re one, so how are we making a difference and making an impact?”
Vernice Armour (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our achievement of Independence imposes upon us a heavy responsibility, not only to defend our hard-won liberty, but also to set ourselves higher standards of equality, justice and opportunity for all, without regard to race, creed or colour. These are the standards from which all who seek to emulate us shall draw inspiration.”
Sam Nujoma (1929–2025) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inaugural speech (21 March 1990)
“The fact is, not Europe but Asia seems to have been the cradle of political liberty, the cradle of democratic and republican government, in the world ... research makes it clear that the democratic and republican institutions of Europe and America actually send their roots back to Asia, and especially to India.”
Jabez T. Sunderland (1842–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sunderland, Rev. Jabez T. India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom Lewis Copeland Company New York 1929p.l- 61 and 196 -197 as quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents an…
“Liberalism has taught the West to turn its principles into tactics to deceive the people. The west dubs this 'democracy,' though it has become evident enough how ill men thrive on a political diet of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (1876–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Humanism has nothing to do with the human. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is no trace of the human… It is all about liberty, equality, and fraternity of the ego (nafsi ammarah) and the satanic self.”
Ahmad Fardid (1909–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Didar e Farahi va Fotuhate Aakhare Zamaan [The Divine Encounter and Apocalystic Revelations,” 2nd edition, Tehran: Moassesseye Farhangi va Pajoheshi Chap va Nashr Vaza, 2008, pp. 76-77.
“Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly... Intimidated or convinced by the darkening political mood, many judges have lost sight of their traditional role as defenders of the liberty of the subject, even when the law allows it”
Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption (born 1948) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his resignation from Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal, in "The rule of law in Hong Kong is in grave danger", Financial Times (10 June 2024)
“Twenty four millions of people have burst their chains, and on the altar erected by despotism for public slavery, have enthroned the image of public liberty" – Speaking of the French Revolution, 4 February 1790.”
John Philpot Curran (1750–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." – Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790, as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations”
John Philpot Curran (1750–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All talk to democracy is bulls— without equality with men…when will the bomb of Arab woman explode? I’m speaking here of her ability, her ambition, her liberty, strength and rights.”
Nadia Makram Ebeid wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With respect to the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3), Egypt’s efforts to fight for peace and security through its fight against terrorism have received worldwide admiration and recognition. One of the government’s main responsibilities is to meet the people’s need for safety and security and it has met with considerable success in this domain.”
Laila Takla wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To leave the liberty of one-half of the human race at the mercy of the convenience of the other, amounts to an annihilation of the rights of that half.”
Marion Kirkland Reid (1815–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Uniting the party’s leaders and members is crucial for rebranding the Liberty Party ahead of the 2029 elections. We cannot continue to dwell on conflicts that have tarnished our image,”
Rugie Barry wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not obligated to tell only certain stories or leave others out. I am at liberty to cover any story that appeals to my audience.”
Lynn Ngugi wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In these days when men are making us spend all our substance and strength on winning the liberty they out to be giving us with both hands – I have no heart to subsidise men’s things at all…except just to hold my seat on the Town Council.”
Margaret Ashton (1856–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chinese citizens expect... government to take... large roles... and do not see interventions as infringements on liberty.”
Keyu Jin (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps Eisenhower was also right when he declared… We thought that they were worthy of being a symbol of liberties, because the Statue of Liberty is in America's bosom, which was imported from America…”
Abla al-Kahlawi (1948–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The France of fraternity, equality, liberty belongs to me as much as to you'”
Emna Belhadj Yahia (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source