Freedom Quotes

Here are thoughts from some of the greatest lovers of freedom.. Enjoy and consider.

From bondage to spiritual faith
From spiritual faith to courage
From courage to freedom
From freedom to abundance
From abundance to selfishness
From selfishness to complacency
From complacency to apathy
From apathy to fear
From fear to dependency
From dependency to bondage
Ezra Taft Benson - President of the Latter-day Saints Church
 

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt Political Essays, ‘The Times Newspaper’

 
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar 1861
 

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
Lord Macaulay (1800–59) British historian. Literary Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’, ‘Milton’,
 

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) US statesman. Speech, Detroit, Oct. 1952
 

Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the colour of their skin.
Wendell Lewis Willkie (1892–1944) US lawyer and businessman. One World, Ch. 13
 

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
Patrick Henry (1736–99) US statesman. Speech, Virginia Convention, 23 Mar 1775
 

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 (1743–1826) US statesman. Letter to W. S. Smith, 13 Nov 1787
 

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.
John Philpot Curran (1750–1817) Irish judge. Speech on the Right of Election of Lord Mayor of Dublin, 10 July 1790
 

What should be said is that Salman has the right to blaspheme, but it is the same citizen’s right as anyone at Speakers’ Corner.
David Hare (1947– ) British playwright. Referring to Salman Rushdie, author of ‘The Satanic Verses’. The Sunday Times, 11 Feb 1990
 

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Speech, House of Commons, 18 Nov 1783
 

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
Martin Luther King (1929–68) US Black civil-rights leader. Stride Towards Freedom
 

I call upon the intellectual community in this country and abroad to stand up for freedom of the imagination, an issue much larger than my book or indeed my life.
Salman Rushdie (1947– ) Indian-born British novelist. Press statement, 14 Feb 1989
 

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular and what no just government should refuse to rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) US statesman. Letter to James Madison, 20 Dec 1787
 

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.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) US statesman. Declaration of American Independence, 4 July 1776
 

Liberty does not consist in mere declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action.
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) US statesman. Speech, 4 July 1914
 

I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Barry Goldwater (1909– ) US politician. Speech, San Francisco, 17 July 1964
 

The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Conduct of Life, ‘Worship’