21 Quotes about Liberty
By 
Introduction
With a healthy dose of government skepticism
1
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O'Rourke
2
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow
3
The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. – Ayn Rand
4
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. – Charles Peguy
5
More laws, less justice. – Marcus Tullius Ciceroca
6
It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth. – Jacob G. Hornberger
7
The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it. – Thomas Edison
8
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
9
No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution...
and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz
10
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Justice Learned Hand
11
The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer the people become. – Lao Tsu
12
I love my country far too much to be a nationalist. – Unknown
13
The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be. – Lao Tsu
14
What kind of a society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. – Milton Friedman
15
It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. – Thomas Paine
16
The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage. – Thucydides (460-400 B.C.)
17
A great danger that we face in our modern world is to get so caught up in the pursuit of the blessings that freedom has given us that we come to take freedom itself for granted, and thus fail to see to its maintenance. – Robert Hawes
18
The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this. – Rep. Ron Paul
19
An anarchist is anyone who believes in less government than you do. – Robert LeFevre
20
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all. – H. L. Mencken
21
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. – The Declaration of Independence
This is wonderful, thank you. I must be having a "7" day because I really like #7, 14 and 17.
Great list, grover! I use number 8 at least once each week when explaining that Dubya's speech of 9/13/01 was plagerized from Hitler's enabling speech of 1933.
The quote I have hanging on my wall is:
"Because I believe in original sin, because I know that I'm capable of craving a cold beer in a village of starving kids, because I understand that selfishness vies for space in our hearts with compassion, I believe we need government — a government that forces us to care for the common good even when we don't feel like it, a government that helps channel our better instincts and check our bad ones. But I also believe in containing government and tempering the claims we make for it. I don't think government is good, just necessary. I'm a liberal who accepts limits."
- George Stephanopoulos
The quote I have hanging on my wall is:
"Because I believe in original sin, because I know that I'm capable of craving a cold beer in a village of starving kids, because I understand that selfishness vies for space in our hearts with compassion, I believe we need government — a government that forces us to care for the common good even when we don't feel like it, a government that helps channel our better instincts and check our bad ones. But I also believe in containing government and tempering the claims we make for it. I don't think government is good, just necessary. I'm a liberal who accepts limits."
- George Stephanopoulos
Thanks jarroyo. Great list.
I like the last part of the quote from Stephanopoulos, "I don't think government is good, just necessary."
I like the last part of the quote from Stephanopoulos, "I don't think government is good, just necessary."
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must dis enthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.
Great list.
Great list.
I wish #3 still held water...... but the government are the criminals.
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