Liberty and Freedom
"I ask, sir, what is the militia ? It is
the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most
effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason, during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the
Constitution (3 Elliot, Debates at 380.)
"It is not certain that with this aid alone
[possession of arms], they would not be able to shake off their
yokes. But were the people to posses the additional advantages of
local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the
national will, and direct the national force; and of officers
appointed out of the militia , by these governments and attached
both to them and to the militia , it may be affirmed with the
greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe
would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which
surround it."
James Madison, Federalist No. 46
"When the government fears the People, that
is Liberty. When the People fear the Government, that is
tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson
"Arms are the only true badges of liberty.
The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a
slave."
Andrew Fletcher 1698
"Gentlemen may cry, 'peace, peace'--but
there is no peace. The war is actually begun! Is life so
precious, or peace so dear, 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!"
Patrick Henry to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775.
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than
by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction
between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who
himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose
property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his
own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms
to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives
precariously, and at discretion."
James Burgh, Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public
Errors, Defects, and Abuses [London, 1774-1775].
"[The American Colonies were] all
democratic governments, where the power is in the hands of the
people and where there is not the least difficulty or jealousy
about putting arms into the hands of every man in the country.
[European countries should not] be ignorant of the strength and
the force of such a form of government and how strenuously and
almost wonderfully people living under one have sometimes exerted
themselves in defence of their rights and liberties and how
fatally it has ended with many a man and many a state who have
entered into quarrels, wars and contests with them."
George Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax
Independent Company" in The Papers of George Mason,
1725-1792, ed Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, 1970).
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to
the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the
military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our
country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow
citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right
to keep and bear their private arms."
Tench Coxe in `Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the
Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym "A
Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18,
1789 at 2 col. 1
"Before a standing army can rule, the
people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of
Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws
by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and
constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that
can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
Noah Webster in "An Examination into the Leading Principles
of the Federal Constitution," 1787, in Paul Ford, ed.,
Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at p. 56 (New
York, 1888).
HCI, the largest private anti-rights organization bent on disarming America says that the notion of a citizenry being armed as a check against government tyranny -- up to and including the abolition of that government -- is not only "ludicrous," but that it "has been widely discredited."
"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 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, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1st, 1776.
"Character is doing the right
thing when no one is waching"
J.C.Watts.
..."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."
-- Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill on the eve of Britain's
entry into World War II
You can have my gun when you pry it FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS !!
Benjamin Franklin: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
the right to bear arms is the only reason rights exist at all.
"A mind unexamined is not worth living".
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merit or efforts." Booker T. Washington, 1857-1915
Thomas Jefferson said: "God forbid we should go twenty years without a revolution!"
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds"- Samuel Adams
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?...I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry
I regret that I only have one life to lose for my country--- Nathan Hale
"The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest."--- Thomas Jefferson
"Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so thou shalt live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas." --Benjamin Franklin
"The purpose of war is to break things and kill people." Rush Limbaugh
"Walk softly, and carry a big stick." Teddy Roosevelt
"Someone convicted of murder by a jury of his peers should be hanged in the public square within 48 hours of his conviction, unless it falls on a Sunday. Then, it should be conducted on Saturday." Thomas Jefferson
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged ~ The trial of Hank Rearden)
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits, who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight which knows not, victory nor defeat"! Teddy Roosevelt
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
- Aesop
The tyranny of the multitude is a
multiplied tyranny.
- Edmund Burke
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
- Edmund Burke
Governments will always misuse the
machinery of the law as far as the state of public opinion
permits.
- Emile Capouya
In America, it is indispensable that
every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of
tyranny can only proceed from the publick. The publick, then, is
to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and
aristocrats are to be watched.
- James Fenimore Cooper
It has been discovered that the best
way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the
nursery.
- Benjamin Disraeli
The human race divides politically into
those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such
desire.
- Robert Heinlein
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
- Robert Heinlein
There is no worse tyranny than to force
a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think
it would be good for him.
- Robert Heinlein
Absolute power corrupts even when
exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees
himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the
submissiveness of sheep.
- Eric Hoffer
They [the clergy] believe that any
portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of
their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon
the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny
over the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and
tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits
at the dawn of day.
- Thomas Jefferson
Tyranny and despotism can be exercised
by many, more rigourously, more vigourously, and more severely,
than by one.
- Andrew Johnson
When the people have no tyrant, their
own public opinion becomes one.
- Lord Lytton
The only good bureaucrat is one with a
pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the
Bill of Rights.
- H.L. Mencken
It is not conclusive proof of a
doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the
hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the
fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in
their subconsciousness convinced of the untenability of their own
doctrines.
- Ludwig von Mises
The main political problem is how to
prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the
meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
- Ludwig von Mises
Necessity is the plea of every
infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it
is the creed of slaves.
- William Pitt
A tyrant...is always stirring up some
war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
- Plato
I personally call the type of
government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and
the other, 'tyranny.'
- Karl Popper
Volumes can be and have been written
about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence,
it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to
treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical
force?
- Ayn Rand
There are four characteristics which
brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule-
executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political
offenses- the nationalization or expropriation of private
property- and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages
forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or
sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.
- Ayn Rand
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
- William Shakespeare
...it may fairly be doubted if any
political tyranny ever imposed on its people such a fear, such a
longing for freedom, such a paralysis of the spirit, as disease.
I doubt if the average Englishman felt himself as much oppressed
by Charles I as by the plague; or if any colonial American was as
much in dread of taxation without representation as of smallpox.
And it may reasonably be contended that Walter Reed and William
Crawford Gorgas brought to man freedom in a more happy sense and
in a larger measure than any military or political leader.
- Mark Sullivan
When whole races and peoples conspire
to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and
shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told
by individuals?
- Mark Twain
The law giver, of all beings, most owes
the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law
compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that
what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own.
- H.G. Wells
The framers gave us the Second
Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us
a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.
- Walter Williams
Liberty is not a means to a higher
political end. It is itself the highest political end.
- Lord Acton
...Although the political liberty of
this country is greater than that of nearly every other civilized
nation, its personal liberty is said to be less. In other words,
men are thought to be more under the control of extra-legal
authorities, and to defer more to those around them, in pursuing
even their lawful and innocent occupations, than in almost every
other country.
- James Fenimore Cooper
Individuality is the aim of political
liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of
being as comports with order and the rights of others, the
institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his
means of happiness in his own manner.
- James Fenimore Cooper
Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that
the basic principle of liberty is
freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few
in their minds.
- Dante Alighieri
Philosophy is harmonized knowledge
making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts
us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom
is liberty.
- Will Durant
...a frequent recurrence to fundamental
principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of
liberty and keep a government free.
- Benjamin Franklin
They that can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
If none were to have Liberty but those
who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in
the world.
- Lord Halifax
All political theories assume, of
course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead
for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the
ignorant themselves as well as the wisest.
- F.A. Hayek
Equality of the general rules of law
and conduct, however, is the only kind of equality conducive to
liberty and the only equality which we can secure without
destroying liberty. Not only has liberty nothing to do with any
other sort of equality, but it is even bound to produce
inequality in many respects. This is the necessary result and
part of the justification of individual liberty: if the result of
individual liberty did not demonstrate that some manners of
living are more successful than others, much of the case for it
would vanish.
- F.A. Hayek
Justice, like liberty and coercion, is
a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to
the deliberate treatment of men by other men.
- F.A. Hayek
Liberty is an opportunity for doing
good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for
doing wrong.
- F.A. Hayek
...the argument for liberty is not an
argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful
tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all
exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use
of coercion to prevent others from doing better.
- F.A. Hayek
It is seldom that any liberty is lost
all at once.
- David Hume
The God who gave us life, gave us
liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but
cannot disjoin them.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and in every age, the
priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with
the despot...
- Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson
If we are made in some degree for
others, yet, in a greater, we are made for ourselves. It were
contrary to feeling, and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man
had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed
all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not the
liberty which the (Virginia) bill of rights has made inviolable,
and for the preservation of which our government has been
charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as
the establishment of the opinion, that the State has the
perpetual right to the services of all its members. This, to men
of certain ways of thinking, would be to annihilate the blessings
of existence, and to contradict the Giver of life, who gave it
for happiness and not for wretchedness.
- Thomas Jefferson
Of liberty I would say that, in the
whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action
according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed
action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the
equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the
law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so
when it violates the right of an individual
- Thomas Jefferson
In a government bottomed on the will of
all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes
interesting to all.
- Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the
inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending
too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The ground of liberty is to be gained
by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get
from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to
get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their
own good.
- Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is the great parent of science
and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion
as it is free.
- Thomas Jefferson
What country can preserve its liberties
if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people
preserve the spirit of resistance?
- Thomas Jefferson
Free institutions are not the property
of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited
powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are
limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the
moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is
that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No
man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.
- Walter Lippmann
The war for liberty never ends. One day
liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on
another day against the intrigues of politicians, on another
against the dead hand of bureaucrats, on another against the
patrioter and the militarist, on another against the profiteer,
and then against the hysteria and the passions of the mobs,
against obscurantism and stupidity, against the criminal and
against the overrighteous. In this campaign every civilized man
is enlisted till he dies, and he only has known the full joy of
living who somewhere and at some time has struck a decisive blow
for the freedom of the human spirit.
- Walter Lippmann
The object and practice of liberty lies
in the limitation of governmental power.
- Douglass MacArthur
When the same man, or set of men, holds
the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.
- George Mason
The aim of all struggles for liberty is
to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and
their constables. The political concept of the individual's
freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of the
police power.
- Ludwig von Mises
The main political problem is how to
prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the
meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
- Ludwig von Mises
In any free society, the conflict
between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent,
unresolvable, and necessary.
- Kathleen Norris
My language has always been that of
liberty and humanity, and I know by experience that nothing so
exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all
circumstances.
- Thomas Paine
...when men yield up the privilege of
thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
- Thomas Paine
We have a solution for war. It is to
expand the sphere of liberty.
- Rudolph Rummel
Few men desire liberty; most men wish
only for a just master.
- Sallust
Liberty means responsibility. That is
why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw
...tradition and custom becomes
intertwined and are a strong coercion which directs the society
upon fixed lines, and strangles liberty.
- William Graham Sumner
If we truly cared about our children
and future generations, instead of demagoging about them, we'd
worry more about saving liberty than saving Social Security.
- Walter Williams
Without liberty, law loses its nature
and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also
loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.
- James Wilson
Liberty has never come from government.
Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The
history of liberty is the history of resistance.
- Woodrow Wilson
"You and I have a rendezvous
with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last
best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the
first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at
least let our children and our children's children say of us we
justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be
done."
Ronald Reagan, 1964
"... 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." - Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, see Jefferson On Democracy, 20 (S. Padover ed. 1939).
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants, I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost." -William Lloyd Garrison
He that hath no sword, let him sell his
garment and buy one.
Jesus
Christ, the Bible, Luke 22:36.
"When a strong man, armed keepeth
his palace, his goods are at peace."
Jesus
Christ, the Bible Luke 11:21
"Among the many misdeeds of the
British rule in India, history will look upon the act of
depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Mahatma
Gandhi
"God grants liberty only to those
who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
Daniel
Webster Speech, June 3, 1834. Vol. iv. p. 47
"Do you mean that the despot will dare to lay hands on this
father of his and beat him if he resists? Yes, when once he has
disarmed him."
Plato,
Republic, (E. Cornford translation, 1945, pg. 295)
"It is criminal to teach a man not
to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal
attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We
believe in obeying the law."
Malcolm X,
March 12, 1964
Necessity is the plea for every
infringement of Human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it
is the creed of slaves.
William
Pitt - British House of Commons during the Revolutionary War and
sympathetic to Colonial America.
The welfare of the people has always
been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage
of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience
Albert
Camus
Arms like laws discourage and keep the
invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world as
well as property.
Thomas
Paine, Writings of Thomas Paine, M. Conway, ed., 1894.
"In America we may reasonably hope
that the people will never cease
to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest
pledge of their liberty."
St. George
Tucker, American Blackstone, 1803
Lt. Lowell Duckett: "Gun control
has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are
criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one
of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith
& Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed."
Special
Assistant to DC Police Chief; President, Black Police Caucus, The
Washington Post, March 22, 1996.
For it's "guns this" and "guns that," and
"chuck 'em out, the brutes," But they're the
"Savior of our loved ones" when the thugs begin to
loot.
Ruyard
Kipling, "Tommy Atkins"
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals,
gun bans attract them."
Walter
Mondale, Former Vice President, (D) and U.S.
Ambassador to Japan, 4/20/94
... I must say this concerning the
great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing I've
ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself
either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property
of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article
number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me
the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally
legal to own a shogun or a rifle."
Malcolm X,
April 3. 1964. *Malcolm X Speaks* ((New York: Merit Publishers,
1965)
"I declare to you that woman must
not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to
protect herself, and there I take my stand."
Susan B.
Anthony, during a speech in San Franscisco, July 1871
"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." - Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
"Democracy never lasts long. It
soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a
democracy that did not commit suicide."
Samuel Adams
"Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson
"Important principles may and must be inflexible." -- Abraham Lincoln
"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."
-Captain John Parker to the company assembled on Lexington Green.
" I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."
Admiral Yamamoto Dec7th 1941 after the assault on Pearl Harbor
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue." -- Barry Goldwater
"THESE are the times that try men's souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine
patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country;
but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us,
that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly:
it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods;
and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as
freedom should not be highly rated."
Thomas Paine
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions he disbelievs, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson, 1777
"Duty is the most sublime word in the English language": Robert E. Lee.
"LIVE FREE OR DIE"
NH License plate quote
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor;
He speaks in accents familiar to his victims, He wears their face and their garments, He appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men, He rots the soul of a nation, He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, He infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear"
Marcus Tullius Cicero 42BC
""Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings"
"Freedom is individual--there is no "s" on the end of it. You can diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep 'some freedoms' while giving up others."
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We can preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we can sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
"God did give mankind virtually unlimited gifts to invent, produce and create. For that reason alone, it would be wrong for governments to devise a tax structure that suppresses and denies those gifts."
Ronald Reagan
Other Sources for quotes of liberty and freedom.
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/usa.htm
