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Freedom, liberty, individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a matter that is not initiating force against them, is critical to me.
Sep 10, 2025
If there was one word on a motivation or world view, that one word would be 'liberty.' That's what inspires me and motivates me more than anything - just the concept of freedom, liberty, what it means.
Philadelphia, the foundation of freedom, liberty and democracy, I still believe in the idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.
America stands for freedom, liberty and justice for all. And it's not happening for all right now.
Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.
The right to freedom being the gift of God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.
No nation was ever ruined by trade.
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
The forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a conspiracy - a conspiracy of Safety Nazis shouting "Sieg Health" and seeking to trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy parties. The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and half-starved population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind.
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
A politician who commends himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to do good with other peoples' money.
There was no one left to speak for me.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
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.
Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" . . . If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
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.
All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
These are the times that try men's souls.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
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.
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
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.