Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. John F Kennedy
Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties. John F Kennedy, February 1961
And our liberty too is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future. John F Kennedy, June 1963
The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any Western society. Robert Kennedy, South Africa, June 1966
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Abraham Lincoln
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Samuel Adams
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity 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
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. Samuel Adams
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine
I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt. George Orwell
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell
Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain. Marquis de Sade
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. Edmund Burke
This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody, or it’s freedom for nobody. Malcolm X
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Cesar Chavez
There’s no place to go. We’re going to have to turn and we’re going to have to confront Big Brother and we’re going to have to struggle if we’re going to maintain our individual liberties and freedom. Jim Marrs
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let’s work together. Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland 1970s
The sovereignty of one’s self over one’s self is called Liberty. Albert Pike
What a fucking liberty! The Catherine Tate Show Christmas Show, Nan and daughter, BBC 2007
The Catholic Church is almost uniformly the enemy of liberty. Gardner Spring, Presbyterian minister
Scotland Yard: It Mysteries And Methods ... A clever and cunning man, having his wits about him and with plenty of money at his command, can always impose upon the unwary and make believe he is engaged in a revolutionary crusade, when his real object is to sell the liberty of his dupes at the highest possible price. Patrick McIntyre
I need something to justify your remaining at liberty. Gangsters starring Maurice Colbourne & Adhmed Khalil & Elizabeth Cassidy & Saeed Jaffrey & Alibe Parsons & Paul Barber & Robert Lee et al, writer Philip Martin, directors Alastair Reid & Roger Tucker & Kenneth Ives, adapted from Play for Today s1e4, Khan to Kline, BBC 1975-1978
Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words. Star Trek s2e23: The Omega Glory, Kirk
Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be. Charles Sumner
Thus began the quest for the so-called American Dream: the dream made of wealth, comfort and well-being ... The connection between liberty and wealth was being continually reinforced. PSTV.tv – The New American Century
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin, 1759
The thing he proposes to buy is that cannot be sold – liberty. Henry Gratton, 1746-1820, Irish nationalist
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad. James Madison
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. James Madison
The liberty of the press is a very great advantage and security to our public liberty. Lord Mansfield, The King v Williams 1774 Lofft 763
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. W E B du Bois
Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right. Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of judgment, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimize an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary. To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract ch4
The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. 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. Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. Alexander Hamilton
Every law is contrary to liberty. Jeremy Bentham
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. Leviticus 25:10
There is never peace where full liberty is not given, nor never stable peace where more than full liberty is granted. John Cotton, 1584-1652
When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters. George Savile, ‘Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’
Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms. ibid.
To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body. Mahatma Gandhi