149 Inspiring Liberty Quotes

In a world where freedom is both a cherished ideal and a hard-won right, the quest for liberty continues to inspire generations. Whether it's the struggle for individual self-expression or the fight against oppression, the essence of liberty has been captured through powerful words and timeless quotes. In this collection of the top 149 inspiring liberty quotes, we delve into the wisdom of thinkers, leaders, and activists from around the globe. Their words serve as a reminder of the enduring spirit of freedom and the unyielding courage required to preserve it. Join us as we explore these compelling quotations that celebrate the universal desire for independence and autonomy.

1. “We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.” - Jose Marti

2. “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” - Søren Kierkegaard

3. “One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.” - Henrik Ibsen

4. “The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.” - Robert Ingersoll

5. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

6. “Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

7. “Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

8. “I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.” - Man Ray

9. “The Truth is found when men (and Women) are free to pursue it.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

10. “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating 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 set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams

11. “The Pledge of Allegiance says 'liberty and justice for all'. Which part of 'all' don't you understand?” - Pat Schroeder

12. “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

13. “A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?” - George Washington

14. “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” - Thomas Jefferson

15. “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."[Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (dissenting)]” - Louis D. Brandeis

16. “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.” - Winston S. Churchill

17. “But words are things, and a small drop of ink,Falling, like dew, upon a thought producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.” - Lord George Gordon Byron

18. “Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.” - Isaiah Berlin

19. “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” - Henry David Thoreau

20. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” - Nelson Mandela

21. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” - George Orwell

22. “The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.” - Herbert Agar

23. “The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.” - William Ellery Channing

24. “So long as the deceit ran along quiet and monotonous, all of us let ourselves be deceived, abetting it unawares or maybe through cowardice...” - William Faulkner

25. “Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.” - Ronald Reagan

26. “Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.” - Bertrand Russell

27. “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

28. “There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.” - Philip K. Dick

29. “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.” - Henry David Thoreau

30. “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” - George Bernard Shaw

31. “When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

32. “There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.” - Walter Lippmann

33. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” - John Milton

34. “Here's what we're not taught [about the Declaration and Constitution]: Those words at the time they were written were blazingly, electrifyingly subversive. If you understand them truly now, they still are. You are not taught - and it is a disgrace that you aren't - that these men and women were radicals for liberty; that they had a vision of equality that was a slap in the face of what the rest of their world understood to be the unchanging, God-given order of nations; and that they were willing to die to make that desperate vision into a reality for people like us, whom they would never live to see. ” - Naomi Wolf

35. “But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.” - Edmund Burke

36. “Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.” - John F. Kennedy

37. “The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.” - Leon Trotsky

38. “The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited, he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.” - John Stuart Mill

39. “Riches I hold in light esteem,And love I laugh to scorn,And lust of fame was but a dreamThat vanished with the morn.And if I pray, the only prayerThat moves my lips for meIs, 'Leave the heart that now I bear,And give me liberty!'Yes, as my swift days near their goal,'Tis all that I implore -In life and death, a chainless soul,With courage to endure.” - Emily Brontë

40. “There are temptations more attractive than angels. Liberty, Patriotism, the good of humanity – words like that are the silver scales of the Tempter’s flaming wings” - Alfred De Musset

41. “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.” - Theodore Roosevelt

42. “It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.” - Horace Greeley

43. “And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.” - Lisa Kleypas

44. “What are you thinking?" he asks.I know Gage hates it when I cry - he is completely undone by the sight of tears - so I blink hard against the sting. "I'm thinking how thankful I am for everything," I say, "even the bad stuff. Every sleepless night, every second of being lonely, every time the car broke down, every wad of gum on my shoe, every late bill and losing lottery ticket and bruise and broken dish and piece of burnt toast."His voice is soft. "Why, darlin'?""Because it all led me here to you.” - Lisa Kleypas

45. “Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” - John Locke

46. “I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit.” - Mark R. Levin

47. “The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.(1778 - 1830)” - William Hazlitt

48. “[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” - John Rawls

49. “[T]he state should not impose a preferred way of life, but should leave its citizens as free as possible to choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.” - Michael J. Sandel

50. “First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.” - Michael J. Sandel

51. “For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.” - Thomas Paine the 5th

52. “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it.” - Woodrow Wilson

53. “Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.” - Ronald Reagan

54. “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson

55. “I would give something to know for precisely whom the deeds were really done, of which it is publicly stated they were done 'for the Fatherland'.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

56. “No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” - Gideon Tucker

57. “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

58. “In learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of words, we have gained a great deal. But if we stop at that point and concern ourselves only with the marvels of the formation of a language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices, we do not reach that end, for grammar is not literature… When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself. The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends them. The laws are its wings. They do not keep it weighed down. They carry it to freedom. Its form is in law, but its spirit is in beauty. Law is the first step toward freedom, and beauty is the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law. Beauty harmonizes in itself the limit and the beyond – the law and the liberty.” - Rabindranath Tagore

59. “A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character…” - John Stuart Mill

60. “You're so full of it, darlin'.” - Lisa Kleypas

61. “Asking an eight-year-old girl if something is a little over-the-top is like asking a Texan if there are too many jalapenos in the salsa. The answer is always no." -Liberty Jones” - Lisa Kleypas

62. “I think you could probably thaw out a glacier, honey." -Hardy Cates” - Lisa Kleypas

63. “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” - Henry David Thoreau

64. “I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.” - Mikhail Bakunin

65. “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.” - Charlotte Brontë

66. “I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

67. “The answer to 1984 is 1776” - Alex E. Jones

68. “Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

69. “در مورد هر انسانی که قضاوتش به راستی شایسته‌ی اطمینان است این سوال پیش می‌آید که چطور شده است عقیده‌ی وی این اندازه مورد اطمینان قرار گرفته است؟برای اینکه فکرش برای شنیدن هر نوع تنقیدی از رفتار و عقایدش باز بوده است. برای اینکه عادت داشته است به تمام آن حرف‌هایی که بر ضد عقایدش اقامه می‌شده است گوش بدهد تا اینکه بتواند از گفته‌های صحیح مخالفان بهره‌مند گردد و در همان حال خود بی‌پرده ببیند که چه قسمت‌هایی از گفته‌ها و دلایل ایشان باطل است و بطلان آن را سر فرصت به دیگران هم نشان بدهد. برای اینکه احساس کرده است که تنها راهی که یک موجود بشری به کمک آن می‌تواند تا حدی به شناختن "سرتاپای یک موضوع" موفق گردد این است که به هر گونه حرف یا نظری که اشخاص مختلف، با عقاید مختلف، درباره‌ی آن موضوع دارند گوش دهد و تمام شکل‌هایی را که آن موضوع در افکار مختلف به خود می‌گیرد از نظرگاه صاحبان آن افکار بررسی کند. هیچ خردمندی جز با گذشتن از این راه خردمند نگردیده است و اصلا نیروی خالقه‌ی فهم بشر طوری آفریده نشده است که وی بتواند از راهی دیگر خردمند گردد.” - John Stuart Mill

70. “Dissident Natan Sharansky writes that there are two kinds of states -- "fear societies" and "free societies," two kinds of consciousness. The consciousness derived of oppression is despairing, fatalistic, and fearful of inquiry. It is mistrustful of the self and forced to trust external authority. It is premised on a dearth of self-respect. It is cramped.In contrast, the consciousness of freedom is one of expansiveness, trust of the self, and hope. It is a consciousness of limitless inquiry. It builds up in a citizen a wealth of self-respect.” - Naomi Wolf

71. “‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.” - Emma Goldman

72. “The human beings at the helm of the new nation [USA], whatever their limitations [slave owners, anti-democracy], were truly revolutionary. The theory of liberty born in that era, the seed of the idea, was perfect.More important, the idea itself carried within it the moral power to correct the contradictions in its execution that were obvious from the very birth of the new nation.” - Naomi Wolf

73. “When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them then he is always stirring up some wary or other in order that the people may require a leader.” - Plato

74. “Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” - Christopher Hitchens

75. “America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” - John Quincy Adams

76. “Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. The history of nations doomed to perpetual slavery, in consequence of yielding up to tyrants their natural born liberties, I read with a sort of philosophical horror; so that the first systematical and bloody attempt at Lexington, to enslave America, thoroughly electrified my mind, and fully determined me to take part with my country.” - Ethan Allen

77. “The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” - John Stuart Mill

78. “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.” - Thomas Jefferson

79. “Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.” - Simone Weil

80. “We are not called to fight the battles of our fathers with a blind faith. We are called to examine their wars, and moreover, to discern whether their actions were sinful or just. Furthermore, we are called to decide whether to correct the errors of our fathers battles through either peace, war, or some combination of the two. We are not bonded to our fathers' fate, but rather called to build on their trespasses or triumphs for a better future.” - Cristina Marrero

81. “Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.” - Frederic Bastiat

82. “The risks of liberty we must let everyone take; but the risks of ignorance and self-helplessness are another matter.” - George Bernard Shaw

83. “...for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.” - Frederic Bastiat

84. “The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.” - Albert Einstein

85. “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” - Abraham Lincoln

86. “Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.” - Robert A. Heinlein

87. “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."[Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)]” - Louis Brandeis

88. “The “Warrior Ethos” emphasizes placing the mission first, not accepting defeat, and being disciplined physically and mentally. Why? Because an American Soldier is a “guardian of freedom and the American way of life.” - Dan Smee

89. “To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

90. “It is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government, the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world. Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power, the lust for bloodshed. The longing for freedom takes the form of crushing the enemy- there is always the enemy!- into the earth; and where and who is the enemy if there is no visible establishment to attack, to destroy with blood and fire? Remember all that oratory when freedom is threatened again. Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.” - Katherine Anne Porter

91. “Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking of liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose kind of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.” - Dalton Trumbo

92. “The Open Road goes to the used-car lot.” - Louis Simpson

93. “No man [...] can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself.” - John Milton

94. “The adjacent shores resounded with the alternate shouts of the sons of liberty and the groans of their parting spirits.” - William Apess

95. “Socrates: Have you noticed on our journey how often the citizens of this new land remind each other it is a free country? Plato: I have, and think it odd they do this.Socrates: How so, Plato?Plato: It is like reminding a baker he is a baker, or a sculptor he is asculptor.Socrates: You mean to say if someone is convinced of their trade, they haveno need to be reminded.Plato: That is correct.Socrates: I agree. If these citizens were convinced of their freedom, they would not need reminders.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

96. “A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.” - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

97. “But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.” - Ron Paul

98. “Freedom or prison--what's the difference? A man must develop unwavering will power subject only to his reason.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

99. “The securest place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty” - ben franklin

100. “Americans are artisans in freedom.” - Derrick G. Jeter

101. “Perfect Liberty follows no rules, law, or any virtue for that matter. It disregards respect, courteousness, and love.” - Veronica Mist

102. “From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty” - Victor Hugo

103. “I have observed that the prosperity or misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of its forefathers. -Juan Crisostomo Ibarra” - Jose Rizal

104. “In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of existentialist ethics. Every subject plays his part as such specifically through exploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he achieves liberty only through a continual reaching out towards other liberties. There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, there is a degradation of existence into the ‘en-sois’ – the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of liberty into constraint and contingence. This downfall represents a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if it is inflicted upon him, it spells frustration and oppression. In both cases it is an absolute evil. Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects.” - Simone de Beauvoir

105. “Government leaders are amazing. So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want.” - Aung San Suu Kyi

106. “Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety, good, and happiness of the people... There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all the others by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike... The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation it is impossible they should be enslaved. Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable... There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living wth power to endanger public liberty.” - David McCullough

107. “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.” - Learned Hand

108. “I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.” - Robert G. Ingersoll

109. “Rights mean you have a right to your life. You have a right to your liberty, and you should have a right to keep the fruits of your labor....I, in a way, don’t like to use those terms: gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, religious rights. There’s only one type of right. It’s the right to your liberty.” - Ron Paul

110. “United States: the country where liberty is a statue.” - Nicanor Parra

111. “Liberty will not descend to a people. A people must raisethemselves to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.” - Charles Caleb Colton

112. “Words of Emancipation didn't arrive until the middle of June so they called it Juneteenth. So that was it, the night of Juneteenth celebration, his mind went on. The celebration of a gaudy illusion.” - Ralph Ellison

113. “He understood privacy and freedom of expression were paramount to liberty, as incompatible as they may appear. One promoted yelling and screaming, while the other encouraged people to retreat and pull within. Yet, cornerstones to American democracy, people needed them both for the lives they took for granted.” - Shelter Somerset

114. “Of all the religions in the world, perhaps the religion of liberty is the only faith capable of purity.” - Tiffany Madison

115. “But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress.” - Caitlin Moran

116. “No man owns me. All man can do is practice the timeless, criminal art of threatening to separate my soul from her physical host.” - Tiffany Madison

117. “So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.” - Niall Ferguson

118. “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...” - Ayn Rand

119. “So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.” - Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

120. “Once you clear the minds of the people of this misconception and enable them to realise that what they are told is religion is not religion, but that it is really law, you will be in a position to urge its amendment or abolition.” - B.R. Ambedkar

121. “Freedom for freedoms sake."~R. Alan Woods [2006]” - R. Alan Woods

122. “There is no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial, in relation to entrenched power, as the old court jesters.” - James Burnham

123. “But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.” - Aldous Huxley

124. “A limited state with free economic systems is the soil where the liberty tree blossoms.” - Orrin Woodward

125. “I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.” - H.L. Mencken

126. “Imprisonment is the form of punishment which may detrimentally affect not only the offender but also his family and his employment and because of its duration it can seldom be kept from becoming general public knowledge. It [...] can have a lasting demoralising effect on the character and personality of the offender. The loss of liberty, tedium, regimentation [...] which prison life entails, have a greater potentiality than a whipping for destroying the offender's self-esteem and the integrity of his character and for changing, for the worse, his way of life.” - P.W. Thirion

127. “The greatest obstacle to human liberty is that the vast majority of people do not wish to be free.” - Michel Templet

128. “All liberty required was that the space for discourse itself be protected. Liberty lay in the argument itself, not the resolution of that argument, in the ability to quarrel, even with the most cherished beliefs of others; a free society was not placid but turbulent. The bazaar of conflicting was the place where freedom rang.” - Salman Rushdie

129. “The fact the enemies of God must face is that modern civilization has conquered the world, but in doing so has lost its soul. And in losing its soul it will lose the very world it gained. Even our own so-called Liberal culture in these United States which has tried to avoid complete secularization by leaving little zones of individual freedom is in danger of forgetting that these zones were preserved only because religion was in their soul. And as religion fades so will freedom, for only where the spirit of God is, is there liberty.” - Fulton J. Sheen

130. “but now and then liberty, in the slogans of the strong, means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.” - Will Durant

131. “the general or prevailing opinion in any subject is rarely or never the whole truth; it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied” - John Stuart Mill

132. “Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” - Plato

133. “What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.” - G.K. Chesterton

134. “Why should I fear death?If I am, then death is not.If Death is, then I am not.Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.Religious tyranny did domineer.At length the mighty one of GreeceBegan to assent the liberty of man.” - Epicurus

135. “What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's just a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he is talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it?” - Dalton Trumbo

136. “Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable.” - John Stuart Mill

137. “The Fathers intent desire is that none would 'perish'. The promise God has given us is one of 'liberation'- Freedom. Being set free "from" captivity and reconciled "to" your Father. Intimacy with Jesus garners son-ship with Abba. As Jesus "demonstrated" that Son-ship of Grace he said, 'I only "say" and "do" what I hear the Father saying and doing'. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God by "Do'in the Stuff". The early church 'got' Jesus. John Wimber 're-got' Jesus and began proclaiming the Kingdom and demonstrating it as any loving son would of his Father. Now, we are no longer refuges but 'Bona Fide' citizens in good standing with our King and our new country. Where Love, Mercy, Grace; Peace 'rains' on us eternally here and now. 'The Already But Not Yet' (Ruis)."~R. Alan Woods [2013]” - R. Alan Woods

138. “I am happy that I can aid those admirable men, both living and dead, who by their pens or their tongues have aided the great cause of human liberty and universal happiness.” - James Watson

139. “In the old Republican days the subject of slavery and of the saving of the Union made appeals to the consciences and liberty-loving instincts of the people. These later years have been full of talk about commerce and dinner pails, but I feel sure that the American conscience and the American love of liberty have not been smothered. They will break through this crust of sordidness and realize that those only keep their liberties who accord liberty to others.” - Benjamin Harrison

140. “In a free society, how can you commit a crime against yourself?” - Jesse Ventura

141. “Martin took the same course, thinking as he went, that perhaps the free and independent citizens, who in their moral elevation, owned the colonel for their master, might render better homage to the goddess, Liberty, in nightly dreams upon the oven of a Russian Serf.” - Charles Dickens

142. “Liberty does not mean doing as you like, it means liking as you ought, and doing that.(From Slave)” - John MacArthur

143. “The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading--northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them how to bankrupt creativity.” - Giannina Braschi

144. “such wanton, wild, and usual slips/ As are companions noted and most known/ To youth and liberty.” - William Shakespeare

145. “Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lykurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich land of ours would bestow upon us if we wished, and instead to enroll ourselves in the academy of discipline and sacrifice. Guided by these laws, our fathers for twenty generations have breathed the blessed air of freedom and have paid the bill in full when it was presented. We, their sons, can do no less.” - Steven Pressfield

146. “Eis os únicos barcos que temos para voltar a nossa pátria; eis nosso único meio de escapar de Minos. Ele, que fechou todas as outras saídas, não pode fechar o ar para nós; resta-nos o ar; fenda-o graças a minha invenção. Mas não é para a virgem de Tégia, nem para o companheiro de Boótes, que é preciso olhar, mas para Orião, armado com uma clava; é por mim que você deve orientar sua marcha com as asas que eu lhe darei; irei na frente para mostrar o caminho; preocupe-se somente em me seguir; guiado por mim você estará seguro, se através das camadas do éter, nós nos aproximarmos do sol, a cera não poderá suportar o calor; se, descendo, agitarmos as asas muito perto do mar, nossas plumas, batendo, serão molhadas pelas águas marinhas. Voe entre os dois. Preste atenção também nos ventos, meu filho; onde seu sopro o guiar, deixe-se levar em suas asas."(Conselhos de Dédalo a Ícaro - em A Arte de Amar)” - Ovid

147. “Free society's organize around the "invisible hand" while Force society's organize around the State's "visible fist.” - Orrin Woodward

148. “Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty.” - Bryant McGill

149. “Liberty is like those solid and tasty foods or those full-bodied wines which are appropriate for nourishing and strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited for them.” - Rousseau Jean - Jacques