on liberty

on Liberty

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 1

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. — Friedrich Hayek

Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. And . . . moderation in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue. — Barry Goldwater

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – power is ever stealing from the many to the few. — Wendell Phillips, Speech to the Massachusetts Antislavery Soceity in 1852

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years — Bertrand Russell

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously — Hubert H. Humphrey

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression. — Thomas Paine

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of government power, not the increase of it. — Woodrow Wilson

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. — Edmund Burke

It is seldom that liberty of any kinds is lost all at once. — David Hume

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. — Elie Wiesel

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. …the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights. — Thomas Jefferson

Force, violence, pressure or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic. — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. — Edmund Burke

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. — James Baldwin

Put no constrictions on the people. Leave ‘em ta Hell alone. — Jimmie Durante

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. — Abraham

All government, of course, is against liberty. — H. L. Mencken

It is asserted by the most respectable writers upon government, that a well regulated militia, composed of the yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered as the bulwark of a free people. Tyrants have never placed any confidence on a militia composed of freemen. — John Dewitt

The history of Liberty is a history of the limitations of governmental power not the increase of it. — Woodrow Wilson

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo… The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom — the freedom we prize — is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind. — George W. Bush

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt

The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals… It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. — Albert Gallatin

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. — Patrick Henry

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. — H. L. Mencken

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. — Thomas Jefferson

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long. — Thomas Sowell

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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. — C.S. Lewis

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. — Henry David Thoreau

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 rights of the individual. — Thomas

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. — George Orwell

I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left. — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

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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. — Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. — P.J. O’Rourke

We love peace, but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive to his body. Chains are worse than bayonets. — Douglas Jerrold

You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can be free only if I am free. — Clarence Darrow

Let every nation know…whether it wishes us well or ill… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. — John F. Kennedy

We can foresee a time when . . . the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another. — Albert Camus

Let the people decide through the marketplace mechanisms what they wish to see and hear. Why is there this national obsession to tamper with this box of transistors and tubes when we don’t do the same for ‘Time’ magazine? — Mark Fowler

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. — Albert Einstein

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or to impede their efforts to obtain it. — John Stuart Mill

One does not encourage “responsibility” by forcibly restricting the range of people’s authority over their own lives. — Butler Shaffer

The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits. — Thomas Jefferson

If we consider that each person owns his own body and can acquire ownership of other things by creating them, or by having ownership transferred to him by another owner, it becomes at least formally possible to define “being left alone” and its opposite, “being coerced”. Someone who forcibly prevents me from using my property as I want, when I am not using it to violate his right to use his property, is coercing me. A man who prevents me from taking heroin coerces me; a man who prevents me from shooting him does not. — David Friedman

The individual can never escape the moral burden of his existence. He must choose between obedience to authority and responsibility to himself. Moral decisions are often hard and painful to make. The temptation to delegate this burden to others is therefore ever-present. Yet, as all of history teaches us, those who would take from man his moral burdens–be they priests or warlords, politicians or psychiatrists–must also take from him his liberty and hence his very humanity. — Thomas S. Szasz

The individual can never escape the moral burden of his existence. He must choose between obedience to authority and responsibility to himself. Moral decisions are often hard and painful to make. The temptation to delegate this burden to others is therefore ever-present. Yet, as all of history teaches us, those who would take from man his moral burdens–be they priests or warlords, politicians or psychiatrists–must also take from him his liberty and hence his very humanity. — Thomas S. Szasz

The right to be left alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

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. — Friedrich Hayek

Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. — John Adams

The dilemma … is between the democratic process of the market in which every individual has his share and the exclusive rule of a dictatorial body. Whatever people do in the market economy is the execution of their own plans. In this sense every human action means planning. What those calling themselves planners advocate is not the substitution of planned action for letting things go. It is the substitution of the planner’s own plan for the plans of his fellowmen. The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence of his own plan. — Ludwig von Mises