quotations about liberty
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J. J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each -- an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being -- they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'etat"
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical and Historical Essays
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Lafayette, The Thomas Jefferson Papers
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
A lion is at liberty who can follow the laws of his own nature, who can eat when his stomach tells him, who can sleep when his fierce eyes grow weary, who can scratch long furrows in a forest tree when his claws feel so disposed. He is not at liberty when he lives in a cage, is fed on horseflesh at 4 p.m., and is compelled at the point of a red-hot poker to spell P-I-G -- PIG, in the presence of a diverted crowd.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Intellectual Slavery
Liberty is potential. To create a free being is to place before it the problem of its destiny.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
EARL WARREN
United States v. Robel
The want of liberty is witnessed in hushed voices and low whisperings; liberty bursts into unshackled eloquence.
LUCY BARTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
The spirit of liberty must be cherished, if we would elevate, purify, and strengthen the fibre of the nation.
ARNAUD DE L'ARIEGE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Authority and the Individual
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
GIDEON J. TUCKER
Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B.
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.
LOUIS BRANDEIS
Olmstead v. United States
Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.
MARY MCCARTHY
The Contagion of Ideas
It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Le Deuxieme Sexe
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to W.S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to James Madison, Mar. 2, 1788
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
JAMES MADISON
attributed, Quote Junkie Presidents Edition
Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.
JAMES MADISON
letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798