Freedom Activist Network's Guide To
Freedom
Quotations
ALPHABETICAL BY AUTHOR
A ·
B · C ·
D · E ·
F · G ·
H · I ·
J · K ·
L · M ·
N · O ·
P · Q ·
R · S ·
T · U · V ·
W · X · Y ·
Z
OTHER FREEDOM QUOTATIONS RELATED
Other Freedom Quotation
Sites · Other Quotations of Interest
to Freedom Activists
- Adams, John Quincy
-
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled,
there will [the United States'] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher
to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator
only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of
her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that
by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners
of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of
extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice,
envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom."
– July 4 1821
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." – Address to the military, Oct 11 1798
- Adams, Samuel
-
"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow
the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. …
While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose
their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first
external or internal invader. … If virtue and knowledge are diffused
among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great
security."
"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."
"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 nor arms. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
"The Constitution of the United States shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
- Anslinger, Harry Jacob other quotes
- "Now this [hemp] is the finest fiber known to mankind, my God, if you ever have a shirt made of it, your grandchildren would never wear it out. You take Polish families. We'd go in and start to tear it up and the man came out with his shotgun yelling, 'These are my clothes for next winter!' "
- Anthony, Susan Brownell
- "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
- Armentano, Dominick T
- "If you have a right to affordable housing, then presumably I have an obligation to supply it to you. If you have a right to reasonably priced medical care, then I have a duty to make such care available to you. This approach to rights appears to divide society into demanders with entitlements on the one side and suppliers with unchosen obligations on the other. But such an approach to rights appears incompatible with traditional notions of liberty and justice in America. This commentary on specific entitlement rights does not mean that the concept of rights is entirely meaningless in a political context. Not at all. It simply means that we must define rights more carefully and in a manner that offends neither economic reality nor basic notions of liberty." – "The Confusion over Rights", Feb 1994
- Ashcroft, John other quote
- "If liberty is the exercise of freedom with responsibility, license is the suggestion that you can exercise freedom without responsibility. Unfortunately, it is possible to exercise freedom irresponsibly. But it is not possible to exercise freedom inconsequentially." – Louisiana Republican Party Convention, Jan 27 1996
- Austin, Alfred
-
"So long as faith with freedom reigns
And loyal hope survives,
And gracious charity remains
To leaven lowly lives;
While there is one untrodden tract
For intellect or will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still
Is Life worth living."
-
Beard, Charles Austin -
"There is but one way to know the truth, and that is not a golden one. It
is fraught with toil and sacrifice and perhaps ridicule. The seeker of the
truth must be fearless, he must not be afraid to enter the innermost holies
of holies, and to tear down the veils of superstition that hang about any
human and so-called divine institution. It is the truth that makes men free.
If the truth tears down every church and government under the sun, let the
truth be known and this truth only will be known when men cease to swallow
the capsules of ancient doctors of divinities and politics; and when men
begin to seek the truth in the records of history, politics, religion, and
science." – 1898
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as dangerous citizen these days is go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence."
- Berlin, Isaiah Mendelevich
- "I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to that degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved. Coercion is not, however, a term that covers every form of inability. If I say that I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air, or cannot read because I am blind … it would be eccentric to say that I am to that degree enslaved or coerced. Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which I could otherwise act. You lack political liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by other human beings." – from "Two Concepts of Liberty", Four Essays on Liberty, pg 122, 1969
- Biko, Steve
- "The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
- Birkett, Richard James
-
"War is like marriage: too easy to get into, too hard to get out of." –
Jan 11 2007
"So, President Bush thinks America has an addiction to oil. I suggest President Bush try pushing (pun intended) the same strategy he's using to end drug addiction: long prison terms for oil addicts and their gas station dealers and kingpin oil company traffickers, seize and burn oil as contraband and automobiles as paraphernalia, intercept and seize oil traffickers at sea including shipments to other countries, eradicate oil at its source regardless of the environmental consequences, provide military aid to countries that cooperate, and impose economic sanctions and overthrow leaders of countries that don't. Furthermore, addicts better not claim any life-saving need for oil; they are still criminals nonetheless. Absurd? Absolutely! Unfortunately, too many Americans don't think this strategy is absurd when applied to drug addiction." – Feb 1 2006
- Bourne, Randolph
- "War is the health of the State."
- Brandeis, Louis D
-
"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill,
it teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become
a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." – 1928
"They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone – the most prehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."
- Branden, Nathaniel
- "If you want to be free, tell the truth." – from interview with Brian Lamb, Book TV, CSPAN, June 27 1989
- Brennan, William J, Jr
- "If there is a bedrock principle of the first amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." – Texas v Johnson, 1989
- Browne, Harry
- "Freedom is living your life as you want to live it." – from How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, 1973
- Buchanan, James M
- "Let those who would use the political process to impose their preferences on the behavior of others be wary of the threat to their own liberties. The liberties of some cannot readily be restricted without limiting the liberties of all."
- Buchanan, Patrick J
- "To hell with empire, we want our country back."
- Buckley, William F, Jr
-
"Pot is harmful, but people shouldn't go to jail for it" – 1974
"The problem would not exist, except that in the United States there is a market for the stuff, and that the stuff is priced very high. If we cannot effectively prevent its insinuating its way into the country, what is it that we can prevent? The answer, of course, is its price. The one thing that could be done, overnight, is to legalize the stuff. Exit crime, and the profits of vice. What we have now is a drug problem plus a crime problem, plus a problem of huge export of capital to the dope-producing countries."
- Burke, Edmund
- "Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found."
- Bush, George Walker
-
"[W]e must remember that the best health-care decisions are not made by
government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors." –
State of the Union, Jan 23 2007
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." – State of the Union, 2003
-
Carlson, Tucker -
"I'm conservative about most things. I have libertarian spirit and [am] not
that interested in being told what to do by the government." – from
The Early Show, CBS, aired Sept 16 2003
"You wouldn't want libertarians in charge of a government. On the other hand, politics informed by libertarian instincts – the libertarian spirit rather than actual libertarianism – is a good thing." from New York mag, Jan 21 2002
“I have to say I think these [ONDCP anti-drug] spots are a waste of $3.5 million."
- Carter, Jimmy
-
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an
individual than the use of the drug itself" – Message to Congress, Aug
2 1977
"I do favor the decriminalization of marijuana."
"War is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children." – Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
- Chapman, Stephen
- "If the first casualty of war is truth, the second is human lives, and what is true of other wars is also true of the war on drugs. Last week, the federal government defiantly ignored the truth about marijuana in announcing a new policy that will undoubtedly cause suffering and death. ... The Public Health Service's message to these people: Drop dead. The bureaucrats admit that 'HIV-wasting syndrome' is a serious and growing problem, that not much is known about it and that 'there are currently no commercially available effective treatments' for it. They don't deny that marijuana helps. But if some people with AIDS will die sooner rather than later because they can't get pot, the people at the Public Health Service are bravely resolved to accept that sacrifice." – Chapman's syndicated column, Mar 16 1992
- Chomsky, Noam Avram
- "The Libertarian Party – is familiar here – unknown elsewhere. There's a long tradition of Anarchism, Libertarian thought outside the United States, which is diametrically opposed to the positions of the Libertarian Party – but it's unknown here. That's the dominant position of what's always been considered Socialist Anarchism. Now, the Libertarian Party, is a Capitalist Party. It's in favor of what I would regard a particular form of authoritarian control. Namely, the kind that comes through private ownership and control, which is an extremely rigid system of domination – people have to – people can survive, by renting themselves to it, and basically in no other way." – from "Chomsky on Capitalism, Libertarian Party, Anarchism", Pozner/Donahue, Feb 14 1992
- Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer
-
"There are two places only where socialism will work; in heaven where it
is not needed, and in hell where they already have it."
"If you will not fight for 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 odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
- Clemens, Samuel aka Mark Twain
-
"Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so
regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffers,
not the state."
"Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it, or even diminish it." – Letter to the Alta Californian newspaper, May 28 1867
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty."
- Confucius
-
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
"When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty."
- Coolidge, John Calvin ,Jr
- "Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."
- Cooney, Ronald F
-
"One must have a commodious faith indeed to believe that the criminal, once
disarmed, will go and rob, rape, and murder no more, or that the very element
of society in whose best interest it is to ignore gun-control laws will accept
them and obey them. The ordinary law-abiding citizen is doubly vulnerable
if he obeys the law and surrenders the gun with which he protects his life
and property because other laws have failed, or he feels they have
failed, to protect him. Should he choose to disregard the law he, and all
like him who were not criminals before, become de facto criminals
in the eyes of the courts, a situation not unlike Prohibition, when a bad
law enacted with the best of intentions did less to stop drinking than shatter
respect for law itself.
The simplistic view of criminal human nature held by the pro-legislation group is exceeded only by its unshakeable conviction in the talismanic properties of coldly mechanical statute. They leave the distinct impression that guns, and not the persons wielding them, are responsible for crime and that by banning guns through legislative fiat one is striking at the heart of the problem. Admittedly, this would be a simpler and tidier world if such things could be, but it is far easier to outlaw guns than to wish away the evil impulses which guns so often serve.
Any free society worthy of the name does not deny the reality of these impulses, does not dispute that there is a darker side of man. Still, the truly free society is less engaged in reforming man-brave and heroic aspiration -than in allowing him to realize his potential for nobility and hence to reform himself. No one claims that freedom showers unmixed blessings, nor that it does not extract a toll." – from "A Freedom Under Fire", The Freeman, vol 25, no 11, Nov 1975
- Coop, W Howard
- "We have freedom to choose, but we do not have freedom to choose the consequences of our choices. … If true freedom is to prevail and our cherished heritage is to be preserved, citizens must be willing not only to claim their rights but also to assume their responsibilities." from "Responsibility Goes With Freedom", Scottish Rite Journal of Freemsonry, Southern Juridiction, USA, Jun 2003
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- "If there should chance to be any mathematicians who, ignorant in mathematics yet pretending to skill in that science, should dare, upon the authority of some passage of Scripture wrested to their purpose, to condemn and censure my hypothesis, I value them not, and scorn their inconsiderate judgement." – from De Revolutionibus Coelestibus
- Coulter, Ann Hart other quotes
- "I think we had enough laws about the turn-of-the-century. We don't need any more." – Politically Incorrect, May 7 1997
- Cronkite, Walter
-
"We should begin by recognizing [the war on drugs'] costly and inhumane
dimensions. Much of the nation, in one way or another, is victimized by this
failure – including, most notably, the innocents, whose exposure to
drugs is greater than ever.
This despite the fact that there are housed in federal and state prisons and local jails, on drug offenses, more than 500,000 persons – half a million people! Clearly, no punishment could be too severe for that portion of them who were kingpins of the drug trade and who ruined so many lives. But by far the majority of these prisoners are guilty of only minor offenses, such as possessing small amounts of marijuana. That includes people who used it only for medicinal purposes.
The cost to maintain this great horde of prisoners is more than $10 billion annually. And that's just part of the cost of this war on drugs: The federal, state and local drug-control budgets last year added up to almost $40 billion. ...
There are awful tales of tragedy and shocking injustice hidden in those figures – the product of an almost mindlessly draconian system called 'mandatory sentencing' in which even small offenses can draw years in prison.
Thousands of women, many of them mothers of young children, are included among those minor offenders. Those children left without motherly care are the most innocent victims of the drug war and the reason some call it a 'war on families' as well as on drugs.
Women are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. prison population, with almost 80 percent of them incarcerated for drug offenses. The deep perversity of the system lies in the fact that women with the least culpability often get the harshest sentences. Unlike the guilty drug dealer, they often have no information to trade for a better deal from prosecutors and might end up with a harsher sentence than the dealer gets. ...
Nonviolent first offenders, male and female, caught with only small amounts of a controlled substance frequently are given prison sentences of five to 10 years or more. As a result, the number of nonviolent offenders in the nation's prisons is filling them to overflowing, literally. The resulting overcrowding is forcing violent felons onto the streets with early releases. ... And college students caught in possession of very small amounts of illegal substances are denied student loans and even food stamps.
The [Drug Policy] Alliance and other organizations are working to reform and reframe the war on drugs. And they are finding many judges on their side, who are rebelling against this cruel system. We can expect no federal action during the congressional hiatus in activity ahead of the November elections, but it would be of considerable help if, across the country, campaigning politicians put this high on their promises of legislative action, much sooner than later." – "Mandated Injustice", 2004
"Every American was shocked when Robert McNamara, one of the master architects of the Vietnam War, acknowledged that not only did he believe the war was 'wrong, terribly wrong', but that he thought so at the very time he was helping to wage it. That's a mistake we must not make in this 10th year of America's all-out war on drugs. It's surely time for this nation to stop flying blind, stop accepting the assurances of politicians and other officials, that if we only keep doing what we are doing, add a little more cash, break down a few more doors, lock up a few more Jan Warrens and Nicole Richardsons, then we will see the light at the end ot the tunnel. Victory will be ours. Tonight we have seen a war that in it's broad outline is not working. And we've seen some less war-like ideas that appear to hold promise. We've raised more questions than we've answered, because that's where the drug war stands today. We're a confused people, desperately in need of answers and leadership. Legalization seems to many like too dangerous an experiment. To others, the war on drugs as is now conducted, seems inhumane and too costly. Is there a middle ground? Well, it seems to this reporter, that the time has come for President Clinton to do what Presdient Hoover did when prohibition was trearing the nation apart: a blue-ribbon panel to re-appraise our drug policy right down to its very core, a commission with full investigative authority and the prestige and power to override bureaucratic concerns and political consdierations. Such a commission could help us focus our thinking, escape the cliches of the drug war in favor of scientific fact, and more rationally analyze the real scope of the problem, answer the questions that bedevil us, and present a comprehensive drug policy for the future. We cannot go into tomorrow with the same formulas that are failing today. We must not blindly add to the body count and the terrible cost of the war on drugs, only to learn from another Robert McNamara 30 years from now that what we've been doing is 'wrong, terrilby wrong'." – "The Drug Dilemma-War or Peace?", The Cronkite Report, first aired June 20 1995
"Anyone concerned about the failure of our $69 billion-a-year War on Drugs should watch this 12-minute [LEAP] program. You will meet front line, ranking police officers who give us a devastating report on why it cannot work. It is a must-see for any journalist or public official dealing with this issue."
-
Dangerfield, Rodney - "Booze is the real culprit in our society. Booze is traffic accidents, booze is wife beating. In my life I've seen many doctors and psychiatrists, and all of them have told me that I'm better off with pot than with booze." – from autobiographical It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs
- Douglas, William Orville
-
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom."
"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
- Douglass, Frederick
- "If there is no struggle, there is not progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. ...This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both mental and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. ... It never did ... and it never will. ... Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." – 1857
- Downs, Hugh
- "The reasons the pro-marijuana lobby wants marijuana legal have little to do with getting high, and a great deal to do with fighting oil giants like Saddam Hussein, Exxon and Iran. The pro-marijuana groups claim that hemp is such a versatile raw material that its products not only compete with petroleum, but with coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, pharmaceutical, timber and textile companies. It is estimated that methane and methanol production alone from hemp grown as bio-mass could replace 90% of the world's energy needs. If they're right, this is not good news for oil interests, and could account for the continuation of marijuana prohibition." – 1995
-
Edison, Thomas Alva - "Religion is bunk."
- Edwards, Alan James
-
"Isaiah Mendelevich Berlin acknowledged that there were many various schools
of thought when it came to the study of liberty and freedom. His distinction
therefore, was an attempt to bring together renaissance, contemporary, marxist,
and idealist philosophy, under one umbrella. Negative liberty, with its
renaissance/reformation philosophical origins, would appeal to those who
advocated the views of Hobbes, Bentham and Mill. Berlin not only separated
negative from positive freedom, but put them in order of priority. To Berlin,
negative freedom was the superior notion, the most significant. Positive
freedom had a much more individualistic focus, and clear negative liberty,
freedom from others, was seen as a more critical, desirable goal. Positive
liberty was all to easily corrupted.
'The positive sense of the word 'liberty' derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master'. Self realisation and personal growth were the keys to positive liberty, human beings are complex rational creatures, not automatons. Berlin continued, 'I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibility for my choices.' …
Perhaps a more persuasive discussion of liberty is MacCallum's 'triadic presentation'. … He suggested that freedom was where, 'X was free from Y to do or become Z', thus incorporating negative and positive liberty. …
Berlin's distinction between positive and negative liberty does present two aspects of liberty, but true liberty cannot be fragmented. Berlin identified negative liberty as 'freedom from', and positive liberty as 'freedom to', but true liberty consists of both." – from "How Persuasive is Berlin's distinction between positive and negative liberty?"
home.clara.net/alaedw/concepts.htm(2006)
also see Isaiah Mendelevich Berlin, Gerald C MacCallum Jr
- Edwards, John Reid
-
"What I will do as president is, we will not be going in and raiding the
use of marijuana for medical purposes in states that have legalized it. I
think where democracy has worked, where voters have decided this should be
legalized, I will not as president go in and run contrary to the will of
the people in those states where it has been legalized. These raids that
are being done against patients, I will not do this as president of the United
States and would put a stop to it. I really think that we need to put the
FDA in charge of this." – Town Hall meeting in Derry NH, June 8 2007
cannabisculture.com/articles/5101.html
- Einstein, Albert
-
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by
the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country
is closely connected with this." – "My First Impression of the USA",
1921
uvm.edu/~rmelamed/Einstein.html
"The ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own– a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
- Elders, Jocelyn
- "I know of no medical group that believes that jailing sick and dying people is good for them."
-
Falwell, Jerry -
"What we saw on Tuesday [Sept 11 2001], as terrible as it is, could be miniscule
if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America
to give us probably what we deserve. The
ACLU has got to take
a lot of blame for this. And I know I'll hear from them for this, but throwing
God ... successfully with the help of the federal court system ... throwing
God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got
to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy
40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad ... I really believe that
the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians
who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU,
People for the American
Way, all of them who try to secularize America ... I point the thing
in their face and say you helped this happen. ... Pat
[Marion Gordon Robertson], did you
notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, the People for
the American Way,
NOW, etc., were
totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of
Congress, as they went out on the steps and and called out to God in prayer
and sang 'God bless America' and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words,
when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual
thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God." –
Interview, 700 Club, Sept 13 2001.
truthorfiction.com/rumors/f/falwell-robertson-wtc.htm
- Ford, Jack
- "I've smoked marijuana and I don't think that's so exceptional for people growing up in the 1960s. The fact that there's so much moral indignation over it is one of the reasons there are so any problems with the disillusionment and alienation of young people in this country."
- Franklin, Benjamin
-
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." – Historical Review of Pennsylvania,
1759
alternately –
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."?
"There never was a good war nor a bad peace."
"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority."
"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature."
- Freeman, Tim
- "When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the first amendment and I can't say anything at all."
- Friedman, David
- "Ask not what the government can do for you. Ask what the government is doing to you."
- Friedman, Milton R
- "Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes 'on suspicion' can be seriously considered as a drug war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations." – Open letter to William J Bennett, Wall Street Journal, Sept 1989
- Fromm, Erick
- "While a class was fighting for its own liberation from domination, it believed itself to be fighting for human freedom as such and thus was able to appeal to an ideal, to the longing for freedom rooted in all who are oppressed. In the long and virtually continuous battle for freedom, however, classes that were fighting against oppression at one stage sided with the enemies of freedom when victory was won and new privileges were to be defended. … Is freedom only the absense of external pressure or is it also the presence of something–and if so, of what? … Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from? Why then is it that freedom is for many a cherished goal and for others a threat? … in the Northern European countries, from the sixteenth century on, man developed an obsessional craving to work which had been lacking in a free man before that period. … Any understanding of freedom in modern society must start with that period in which the foundations of modern culture laid, for this formative stage of modern man permits us, more clearly than any later epoch, to recognize the ambiguous meaning of freedom which was to operate throughout modern culture: on the one hand the growing independence of man from external authorities, on the other hand his growing isolation and resulting feeling of individual insignificance and powerlessness. … the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedom, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self, to have faith in this self and in life. … The peak in the evolution of freedom in the political sphere was the modern democratic state … Does freedom from all primary ties make the individual so alone and isolated that inevitably he must escape into new bondage? … the process of growing freedom does not constitute a vicious circle; and that man can be free and yet not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts, independent and yet an integral part of mankind" – Escape From Freedom, 1941
-
Gaddafi, Muammar Abu Minyar al- - "Man’s freedom is lacking if somebody else controls what he needs, for need may result in man’s enslavement of man." – Qaddafi’s Green Book, pg 72, 1988
- Galbraith, Gatewood
-
"We can restore liberty by taking government out of our bedrooms, our
bloodstreams, our bladders, our brains, our businesses and our back-pockets."
– 1995
"Did my father's generation hit the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima so their children would have to pee in a cup to hold a job in America?" – 1995
"We live in a police state. There's no doubt about it. When we walk out of our home, get in our car and go down the street, they can set up random roadblocks; make us get out of our car; bring up a dog to sniff us and our car's contents. Do you think John Wayne would have put up with that? John's riding his horse down a trail. They drop a log in front of him and say, "John, get down off that horse, let this dog sniff you, we're going to take blood out of your arm and make you pee in this bucket. I believe John Wayne would have said, 'I'm afraid not, Pilgrim. This is where I draw my line in the sand.' I think The Duke would be with me on this one." – 1991
"This new prohibitionist mentality is the cornerstone of a new, yet old, form of slavery where the 'status' criminal is the fodder for dealing anew in human beings. Fathers and mothers are condemned to extraordinary prison terms, torn from the arms of their distraught wives and crying children, replaying those tragic scenes of forced family separation on the auction block 150 years ago. The privatization of prisons has further institutionalized this dealing in human beings as a form of commerce and it is just as immoral and unchristian in this century as it was in the past. The madness of slavery revisited!" – The Synthetic Subversion
- Galilei, Galileo
-
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect intended us to forgo their use."
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
- Gardner, Martin
- "Let me stress once more that noncognitive ethics does not deny that cognitive elements enter into all moral problems. … The rub comes when justifications for moral rules are traced back to the most basic posits. Here are some examples: It is better to be alive than dead. It is better to be healthy than sick. It is better to be happy than miserable. It is better for a culture to survive than perish. It is better for the human race to survive than become extinct. Can such posits be justified by reason and science?" … "A free-will act cannot be fully predetermined. Nor can it be the outcome of pure chance. Somehow it is both. Somehow it is neither." – from The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, 1983, pgs 91, 101
- Germanos of Patras, Bishop
- "eleftheria i thanatos" – declares Germanos on Greek Independence Day, Mar 25 1821. The Greek phrase translates in English as "freedom or death".
- Goldstein, Emmanuel
- "To understand the nature of the present war … for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war … one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive."
- Goldwater, Barry Morris
-
"Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense
of freedom is no vice."
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have."
"Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar."
"Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes – and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?"
-
Hamilton, Alexander -
"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." – Federalist Papers
"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things."
- Hannah, Daryl
- "I'm afraid of chemical-based drugs. But the ones derived directly from nature concern me less. Things like mushrooms, peyote, marijuana, shouldn't be illegal. You don't want people to operate heavy machinery while they're on those things, but I have no problem with their use."
- Harris, Sidney
- "It is my melancholy conviction that our renewed 'war on drugs' will have much the same results as Prohibition did: swelling the police bureaucracy, corrupting officials, increasing violent crime, enriching traffickers, adulterating the product and failing to diminish the number of consumers." – 1984
- Havel, Vaclav
-
"When the internal crisis of the totalitarian system grows so deep that it
becomes clear to everyone, and when more and more people learn to speak their
own language and reject the hollow, mendacious language of the powers that
be, it means that freedom is remarkably close, if not directly within reach."
– Speech, Radio Marti, Sept 2003
"Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace."
"All my adult life, I was branded by officials as 'an exponent of the right' who wanted to bring capitalism back to our country, Today – at a ripe old age – I am suspected by some of being left-wing, if not of harbouring out-and-out socialist tendencies. What, then, is my real position? First and foremost, I have never espoused any ideology, dogma, or doctrine – left-wing, right-wing, or any other closed, ready-made system of presuppositions about the world. On the contrary, I have tried to think independently, using my own powers of reason, and I have always vigorously resisted attempts to pigeonhole me."
"I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions."
"There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them – isn't this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual?"
- Hayek, Friedrich A von
-
"A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his
own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of
the individual and cannot really know freedom."
"… if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
- Hazlitt, Henry
- "We need government to prevent or minimize internal and external violence and aggression and to keep the peace. But we obliged to recognize that no group of men can be completely trusted with power. All power is liable to be abused, and the greater the power the greater the likelihood of abuse. For that reason, only minimum powers should be granted to government. But the tendency of government everywhere has been to use even minimum powers to increase its powers."
- Head, Jeff
- "Liberty is freedom from encumberance in an environment where the unalienable rights of mankind are both recognized and respected and where individual 'Free Will' is the avenue for interaction in society." – from "Liberty - It's communicable … Spread It !!!", Sept 19 1999
- Heinlein, Robert Anson
- "An armed society is a polite society."
- Helveticus, Claude Adrien
- "The free man is the man who is not in irons, nor imprisoned in a gaol, nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment ... it is not lack of freedom not to fly like an eagle or swim like a whale."
- Henry, Patrick
- "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!" – Saint John's Church, Mar 1775
- Hitt, Jack
- "… The deployment of freedom and liberty, two alleged synonyms, tells the whole story. You almost never hear the word liberty anymore. Yet freedom rings in our speeches incessantly. Liberty has an old Jeffersonian quality to it. The word is suffused with that soaring founding spirit, suggesting that we had come up with a new idea that was much bigger than mere America. This was an idea that was "self-evident," that originated from the "Creator" and applied to "all men." The word freedom, as it's been used in the last half century, is a strangely smaller concept. We talk about "freedom and the America way." Freedom is a version of big wild liberty that's been, well, domesticated. Freedom can easily fit into as small a package as you want to wrap." – from "Liberty and Justice for Us", Mother Jones, Mar/Apr 2002, pgs 30-32
- Hoffer, Eric
-
"The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human
manifestations."
"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do."
"Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading."
"Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse."
"Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, 'to be free from freedom.' "
"Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority."
"Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority."
"To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility."
"To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition."
"Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay."
- Holmes, Oliver Wendall, Jr
- "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."
- Hospers, John
-
"The most important distinction in the discussion of freedom is between freedom
– from and freedom – to. The Soviet expatriate in the U.S. is free
from the dictatorship to which he was subject in the U.S.S.R.; the American
businessman, after a regulatory act has been repealed, is now free from the
restrictions imposed by that regulation. But once this freedom-from has been
obtained, a person is free to do many things he could not do before: the
Soviet expatriate is now free to choose his own line of work, to buy property,
to become an entrepreneur and hire workers, and so on; the businessman is
free to conduct his business in a way he was legally prohibited from doing
before. The more one is free from restrictions, the more one is free to do
things that he could not do while bound by restrictions.
The two are thus intimately related, but they are not quite two sides of the same coin. If I go mountain climbing and fall into a crevasse, I am not free to move about, or do anything but remain there until help arrives; my choices are extremely limited. And yet, if I went on the expedition voluntarily, there is no question of my lacking freedom-from: nobody made me go, I was not responding to anyone's command, nobody coerced me. My present sad plight with regard to freedom-to is not the result of any lack of freedom-from. True, I am not free-from obstacles to my getting out of the crevasse-such as the height of the pit and the lack of rope, etc-but there are no man-made constraints. Much, then, depends on whether freedom-from is considered freedom from constraints or obstacles in general, or whether it is freedom from man-made constraints and obstacles. …
In the writings of the Founding Fathers, freedom always meant freedom from tyranny and oppression. But in today's political climate, the appeal of freedom has largely shifted to freedom-to. …
For the free market to operate there must be freedom from the whims of dictators and bureaucrats. The market can survive, though crippled, with some degree of interference, but when the interference becomes severe enough to keep a man from being able to estimate probabilities into the future, or when his taxes become so high that it is no longer worth his while to continue in operation, the market is no longer able to function so as to produce a vast quantity of goods and services at competitive prices. Freedom-from is indispensable to the market, and is indeed its chief condition.
Freedom-to is a highly beneficial consequence of the unimpeded operation of the market. When entrepreneurs are free from economic controls imposed on their activities by others, they will produce a proliferation of goods, which the public is then free to consume. This freedom to on the part of the public is the direct result of freedom from controls which makes the market able to function." – from "The Meaning of Freedom", The Freeman, Sept 1984, vol 34, no 9
-
Ingersoll, Robert Green -
"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the
ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into
every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls
of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all
the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant,
a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world –
not even in infinite space. I was free – free to think, to express my
thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself
and those I loved – free to use all my faculties, all my senses –
free to spread imagination's wings – free to investigate, to guess and
dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself – free
to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the 'inspired' books that savages
have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from
popes and priests – free from all the 'called' and 'set apart' –
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of
eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of the night – free
from devils, ghosts, and gods. For the first time I was free. There were
no prohibited places in all the realms of thought – no air, no space,
where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs
– no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master's
frown or threat – no following another's steps – no need to bow,
or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and
fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain – for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still." – Ingersoll's Vow
"An honest God is the noblest work of man."
-
Jackson, Andrew -
"It is a damned poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to
spell any word."
or
"It is a damned poor mind indeed that can't think of at least two ways of spelling any word."
or
"It's a damned poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, showers its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."
- Jackson, LaToya
- "Freedom is the most important thing in the world." – interview on Howard Stern Show
- Jefferson, Thomas
-
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the
people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them,
but to inform their discretion by education." – letter to William C
Jarvis, Sept 28 1820
"Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one." – letter to Lafayette, 1815
"The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?" – Second Inaugural Address, 1805
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, –entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; … freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, –these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. … a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." – First Inaugural Address, Mar 4 1801
"We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe. Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object." – letter to C W F Dumas, 1793
"The fact well established in the system of agriculture is that the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine; in other words, to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly exposed. This preference to be given will result from a comparison of them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but being a material of manufactures of various sorts, becomes afterwards the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred in a populous country. America imports hemp and will continue to do so, and sundry articles made from hemp, such as cordage, sail cloth, drilling linnen and stockings." – Mar 16 1791
"… God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." – Letter to William S. Smith, Nov 13 1787
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others." – "Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785)"
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." – June 1776
"The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed." – from "Notes on Religion", 1776
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater ... confidence than an armed man." – Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, 1764
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
(Editor's note: This quote is similar to, and may be the basis for, the Wendell Phillips quote "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.")
"When the people fear the government you have tyranny … when the government fears the people you have liberty."
"Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!"
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it."
"I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away ... a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general and particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be."
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
"[W]e must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds … we [will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery. And the foreshores of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls of those who live under tyranny."
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it."
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations ... entangling alliances with none."
"State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.""
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free neither restraining nor aiding them in the pursuits."
"To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
"Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
- Jesus (the Christ) of Nazareth
- "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
- Johnson, Gary E
-
"I'm not advocating breaking the law, but personally, I don't think you should
go to jail for smoking marijuana." – Aug 11 1999
"Common sense or logic would dictate that when you take this issue on, when you talk about legalization or decriminalization, if you are going to talk about that, you are going to talk about taking it in steps, and certainly the first step would be marijuana. … All of us can make a list out of friends that have used drugs. Are our friends criminals for using drugs? Yes, they are today given the laws that we have. Should they be criminals? Are they criminals? For the most part, no they are not." – June 30 1999
"The nation's so-called War on Drugs has been a miserable failure. It hasn't worked. The drug problem is getting worse. I think it is the number one problem facing this country today ... We really need to put all the options on the table ... and one of the things that's going to get talked about is decriminalization ... What I'm trying to do here is launch discussion." – June 23 1999
"I'm going to enforce the laws that we have. But I think the laws need to be changed and I'm going to work within the system to change the law."
"We're spending more and we're locking more people up … Personally, I have a fundamental problem with putting people in jail for drug use."
"What I've done since I've been in office is I have just done a cost-benefit analysis of everything that's come across my desk … And right now, the glaring cost-benefit analysis that has incredible cost and no benefit is our war on drugs.
- Johnson, Samuel
- "They make a rout about universal liberty without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty. Political liberty is good only so far as it produces private liberty." – 1768