Quotes
Quotes about Liberty
No sacrifice short of individual liberty, individual self-respect, and individual enterprise is too great a price to pay for permanent peace.
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please. -As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery. [Lat., Nimia libertas et populis et privatis in nimiam servitutem cadit.]
The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of Christianity she is a toy and a sentimental goddess. With increasing moral light, and greater liberty, and more universal justice, she begins to develop as an equal human being.
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.
'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world--so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered ... deeply, ... finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
The new constitution established a president with powers unheard of in the republican United States. Some even wanted him to be king, a thought that GW found ludicrous: What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & fallacious!
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
If war should sweep our commerce from the seas, another generation will restore it. If war exhausts our treasury, future industry will replenish it. If war desiccate and lay waste our fields, under new cultivation they will grow green again and ripen to future harvest. If the walls of yonder Capitol should fall and its decorations be covered by the dust of battle, all these can be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of a demolished government; who shall dwell in the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty; who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites sovereignty with state's rights, individual security with prosperity?
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
The defender of his country--the founder of liberty, The friend of man, History and tradition are explored in vain For a parallel to his character. In the annals of modern greatness He stands alone; And the noblest names of antiquity Lose their lustre in his presence. Born the benefactor of mankind, He united all the greatness necessary To an illustrious career. Nature made him great, He made himself virtuous.
Our common Father and Deliverer, to whose prudence, wisdom and valour we owe our Peace, Liberty and Safety, now leads and directs in the great councils of the nation . . . and now we celebrate an independent Government--an original Constitution! an independent Legislature, at the head of which we this day celebrate, The Father of his Country--We celebrate Washington! We celebrate an independent Empire!
There's a star in the West that shall never go down Till the records of Valour decay, We must worship its light though it is not our own, For liberty burst in its ray. Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard By a freeman, and thrill not his breast? Is there one out of bondage that hails not the word, As a Bethlehem Star of the West?
This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name on earth--long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name an eulogy is expected. It can not be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on.
That name descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging to all tribes and races of men, will forever be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by everyone in whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and liberty.
