Liberty Quotes

Quotes on the ideals of human liberty, from statesmen and people of faith.

To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. — George Mason

Too much democracy leads to tyranny. . . . Tyranny of the majority need not be institutionalized by law. Public opinion, when regarded too highly, also exercises tyranny. — Alexis de Tocqueville

A man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. — President James Madison (Democratic-Republican)

But let us never forget . . . beyond Europe’s borders, in a world where oppression and violence are very real, liberation is still a moral goal, and freedom and security still need defenders. — President George W. Bush (R)

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. — Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright. — Robert A. Heinlein

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. — President John F. Kennedy (D)

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws . . . [that] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. — Cesare Beccaria, “On Crimes and Punishments”, 1764

Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. — Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)

Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government. — Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. — President George Washington

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. — Adolf Hitler

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. — Robert Hutchins

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. — Mahatma Gandhi

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? . . . If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? — Governor Patrick Henry (VA)

So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause. — Padmé Amidala, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — President Gerald Ford (R)

Today’s various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages[, and] the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are . . . anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man. — Pope Benedict XVI

The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery. — Pope Benedict XVI

The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals. — President James Monroe (Democratic-Republican)

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. — Sir Winston Churchill

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire

It’s disingenuous to call something a ‘right’ if you simultaneously demand that people take advantage of their ‘right’ whether they want to or not. That’s not a right, it’s a command. Republics have rights; tyrants have commands. — Scott Bradford

Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms…the benefits of them will be left equally free and open to all. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we’ve removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gifts of God? — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian [Nazi] onslaught on liberty. Up ’til then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty. — Albert Einstein

It is a fact, too—although a curious one—that the sale of small arms to gun enthusiasts or sportsmen produces a greater sense of moral outrage in western society than is produced by the sale to psychotic despots of weaponry capable of killing thousands. — Margaret Thatcher

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. — John Basil Barnhill, Indictment of Socialism No. 3

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. — Blessed Pope John Paul II

Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils. — General John Stark

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! — Governor Patrick Henry (VA)

All the armies of Europe combined could not by force make a track upon the Blue Ridge, or take a drink from the Ohio. If we are to be destroyed, we must do it ourselves. — President Abraham Lincoln (R)

In free government the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors and sovereigns. — Benjamin Franklin

God who gave us life gave us liberty. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power. — Benjamin Franklin

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity. — President George W. Bush (R)

An unjust law is no law at all. — Saint Augustine of Hippo

The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country. — President George Washington

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. — President George Washington

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. — President George Washington

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. — President George Washington

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power…. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit, and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. — President John Adams (Federalist)

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations…. — President James Madison (Democratic-Republican)

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. — President James Monroe (Democratic-Republican)

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. — President James Monroe (Democratic-Republican)

A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. — President James Madison (Democratic-Republican)

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. — Governor Patrick Henry (VA)

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society. — Sec. of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (Federalist)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — First Amendment, United States Constitution

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. — Second Amendment, United States Constitution

No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. — Fifth Amendment, United States Constitution

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…. — Fourth Amendment, United States Constitution

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. — Ninth Amendment, United States Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. — Tenth Amendment, United States Constitution

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. — Edmund Burke

Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. — Edmund Burke

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts. — Edmund Burke

The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90mph, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20. — Sam Cohen

…the [National Rifle] Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen. — President John F. Kennedy (D)

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. — President Abraham Lincoln (R)

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. — President Abraham Lincoln (R)

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. — President Abraham Lincoln (R)

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

Be not intimidated . . . nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery[,] and cowardice. — President John Adams (Federalist)

Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. — President James Madison (Democratic-Republican)

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. — President James Madison (Democratic-Republican)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — U.S. Declaration of Independence

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…. — U.S. Declaration of Independence

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — U.S. Declaration of Independence

Too many of us believe that the local police or our military…will always be there to protect us, and will always be on our side. Too many of us believe we will never need to act individually—violently, if necessary—to protect ourselves, our families, our liberty, our communities, or our country. — Scott Bradford

There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

It is not just an accident that in our age inflation has become the accepted method of monetary management. Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism. — Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit

In truth, the idea that there is a fundamental right to life is a liberal idea…. It is an idea that compassionately sees humanity in people who might seem un-human. It is an idea that won’t let you forget or ignore somebody just because they are hidden from view, or imperfect. — Scott Bradford

Our government is still clothed in the garb of a republic, but more and more our representatives behave as if they are the American sovereigns and are un-bound by any limits on their authority. Many have forgotten that we are the sovereigns, we make the republic, and it is our job to keep it. — Scott Bradford

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. — John Maynard Keynes

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? — Governor Patrick Henry (VA)

I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America because this was the country based on my moral premises and the only country where one could be fully free to write. — Ayn Rand

…the more I see the better satisfied I am that I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit. — President Theodore Roosevelt (R)

Diplomacy is utterly useless when there is no force behind it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master of the soldier. — President Theodore Roosevelt (R)

It is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness. — President Theodore Roosevelt (R)

The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. — Gov. Samuel Adams (Democratic-Republican-MA)

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom–go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! — Gov. Samuel Adams (MA-Democratic-Republican)

…whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. — John Locke, Second Treatise on Government

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. — Sir Winston Churchill

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. — President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

The fact that I want to fly to Albuquerque does not constitute probable cause for an invasive search. — Scott Bradford

Interest groups…are made up of people who willingly support those groups with their time and money. They aren’t some diabolical, nebulous enemy of our democracy; they ARE democracy. — Scott Bradford

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. — Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! — Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. — Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. — Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. — Aristotle, Politics

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. — Aristotle, Politics

The basis of a democratic state is liberty. — Aristotle, Politics

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual…but rather he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. — Gov. Samuel Adams (Democratic-Republican-MA)

As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism. — Blessed Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus

In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. — Benjamin Franklin

The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working class flat or laborer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. — George Orwell

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. — Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail

The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy. — Reverend John Wesley

A government will best promote a speedy business recovery by making recovery the top priority, which means letting people keep more of their money, removing obstacles to productive enterprise, and providing stable money and a political climate where investors feel that it’s safe to invest for the future. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

Economic planning on a national scale in a politically free society involves contradictions that cannot be resolved in practice. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

A tax, in the general understanding of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an exaction for the support of the Government. The word has never been thought to connote the expropriation of money from one group for the benefit of another. — Justice Owen Roberts

The question is not what power the Federal Government ought to have, but what powers, in fact, have been given by the people…. The federal union is a government of delegated powers. It has only such as are expressly conferred upon it and such as are reasonably to be implied from those granted. — Justice Owen Roberts

From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. — Justice Owen Roberts

Union bosses talked about securing the ‘right to strike,’ but they didn’t mean the right to quit, which everybody already had. In practice, the ‘right to strike’ meant the right to forcibly prevent others from filling jobs that strikers had left. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

If the Constitution, intelligently and reasonably construed, stands in the way of desirable legislation, the blame must rest upon that instrument, and not upon the court for enforcing it according to its terms. The remedy in that situation—and the only true remedy—is to amend the Constitution. — Justice George Sutherland

People must be free to use their knowledge, and they must have incentives to do so. Market prices must be free because they are crucial signals indicating whether things are abundant or scarce, unwanted or wanted. The most important thing government officials can do is get out of the way. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

The people have spoken, and the politicians must learn to answer or understand. They will be made to understand that they are the servants of the rank and file of the plain citizens of the republic. — President Theodore Roosevelt (R)

It cannot be said often enough: Well-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from start-ups, which come from smart, creative, inspired risk takers. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

But if we successfully reduce gun murders without reducing the overall murder rate, that’s not really success. The murder victim doesn’t care whether he was killed with a gun, knife, hammer, car, poison, anvil, or blow-dart. Neither should we. — Scott Bradford, On the Obama Gun-Control Proposals

I am a gun. I have challenged the waves and crossed a vast, unforgiving sea. I have landed on these shores. I am held by the pilgrim, the pioneer, and the trail blazer. I have brought civilization to a barren wilderness. — R.G. Yoho, I Am a Gun

Should Congress, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the Government, it would become the painful duty of [the Supreme Court], should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say that such an act was not the law of the land. — Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland