Motivational Quotes

Liberty

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

- Seneca

Best Quotes about Liberty

I would rather not be a king than to forfeit my liberty.

Phaedrus

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Jefferson, Thomas

We are as great as our belief in human liberty -- no greater. And our belief in human liberty is only ours when it is larger than ourselves.

Macleish, Archibald

Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.

Warren, Earl

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

Madison, James

When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.

Wilde, Oscar

I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

Santayana, George

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.

Curran, John Philpot

An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.

Montessori, Maria

10.

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

Blake, William

11.

Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

Rogers, Will

12.

How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.

Ruskin, John

13.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

Madison, James

14.

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

Seneca

15.

Liberty can not be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

Adams, John

16.

They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Franklin, Benjamin

17.

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

Whitman, Walt

18.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

Kahn, Otto Herman

19.

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

Montesquieu, Charles De

20.

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.

Hegel, Georg

21.

If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.

Wylie, Philip

22.

The history of liberty is the history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

23.

It would seem that man was born a slave, and that slavery is his natural condition. At the same time nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.

Weil, Simone

24.

What light is to the eyes -- what air is to the lungs -- what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

25.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Jefferson, Thomas

26.

The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.

Seneca

27.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

Freud, Sigmund

28.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Jefferson, Thomas

29.

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.

Hazlitt, William

30.

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

White, William Allen

31.

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

Asquith, Margot

32.

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

33.

Liberty consists in wholesome restraint.

Webster, Daniel

34.

What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity -- for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

35.

Liberty is God's gift, liberties the devil s.

Proverb, German

36.

One's liberty should end when it becomes the curse of his neighbor.

Farrar, Frederick

37.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

Fosdick, Harry Emerson

38.

Then we are assured by Sartre that owing to the final disappearance of God our liberty is absolute! At this the entire audience waves its hat or claps its hands. But this natural enthusiasm is turned abruptly into something much less buoyant when it is learnt that this liberty weighs us down immediately with tremendous responsibilities. We now have to take all God's worries on our shoulders --now that we are become men like gods. It is at this point that the Anxiety and Despondency begin, ending in utter despair.

Lewis, Wyndham

39.

It is not one man nor a million, but the spirit of liberty that must be preserved. The waves which dash upon the shore are, one by one, broken, but the ocean conquers nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears out the rock. In like manner, whatever the struggle of individuals, the great cause will gather strength.

Byron, Lord

40.

Old England liberty -- to be robbed by the Ministry, and insulted by the populace without redress.

Stedman, Captain J. G.

41.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Goldwater, Barry

42.

There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

Breton, Andre

43.

Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.

Montesquieu, Charles De

44.

Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America's problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God.

Peale, Norman Vincent

45.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.

Gompers, Samuel

47.

Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.

Hailsham, Lord Quintin Hogg

48.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Thoreau, Henry David

49.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.