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FREEDOM

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see:

AMERICA

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BILL OF RIGHTS

CIVIL RIGHTS

CONSTITUTION

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

DEMOCRACY

EQUAL RIGHTS, EQUALITY

FREE, FREE PRESS, FREE SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

HUMAN RIGHTS

INDEPENDENCE

LIBERTY

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

PRIVACY

PROTEST, PROTESTORS

REVOLUTION

RIGHTS

SEARCH & SEIZURE

SELF-DETERMINATION

GEORGE WASHINGTON

---

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country
is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
--Lord Acton (1834—1902)
British historian.
"The History of Freedom in Antiquity" [1877],
address to the Members of the Bridgnorth Institute [26 February 1877].

-

I must study politics and war, that my sons
may have the liberty to study mathematics
and philosophy, geography, natural history
and naval architecture, in order to give
their children a right to study painting,
poetry, music, architecture, statuary,
tapestry, and porcelain.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
_Letters to his Wife: Vol. II_, Letter #78 [1780]


There is but one element of government, and that is *the
people.* From this element spring all governments. For a
nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it. For
a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
Letter to John Taylor [1814].


When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking,
or thinking, I cannot chose but laugh. No such thing
ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it
will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you
and I shall write and speak no more.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson [15 July 1818].

-

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.
--Aneurin Bevan (1897—1960)
British Labour politician.
In Michael Foot _Aneurin Bevan_, vol. 1, ch. 3 [1962].

Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States
has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of
any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is
unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational
speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully
persuasive to all normal human beings. America tells one
story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and
equality. From its first settlers and its political foundings
on, there has been no dispute that freedom and equality
are the essence of justice for us. No one serious or notable
has stood outside this consensus. You had to be a crank
or a buffoon (e.g., Henry Adams or H.L. Mencken,
respectively) to get attention as a nonbeliever in the
democracy.
--Allan Bloom (1930—1992)
American writer and educator.
_The Closing of the American Mind_ [1987]

There is no tyrant like custom, and no
freedom where its edicts are not resisted.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 110 [10th ed. 1884].

-

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect
liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men
born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their
liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning
but without understanding.
--Louis Brandeis (1856—1941)
American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1916—1939].
Dissenting opinion "Olmstead v. United States" [1928].


The makers of our Constitution [...] conferred, as
against the Government, the right to be let alone —
the most comprehensive of rights and the right
most valued by civilized men.
--Louis Brandeis (1856—1941)
American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1916—1939].
Dissenting opinion "Olmstead v. United States" [1928].

-

None who have always been free can understand the
terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to
those who are not free.
--Pearl S. Buck (1892—1973)
American author noted for her novels of life in China;
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_What America Means to Me_ [1943]

I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly
cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General
Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser,
resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then
use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient
man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my
ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived
at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts,
is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives
busy, and liberals at bay. And the nation free.
--William F. Buckley Jr. (1925—2008)
American author and journalist.
_Up From Liberalism_ [1959]

The freedom women were supposed to have in the
Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception
and abortion: things to make life easier for men,
in fact.
--Julie Burchill (b. 1959)
English journalist.
_Damaged Goods_ [1986] "Born Again Cows"

A free press can of course be good or bad, but,
most certainly, without freedom it will never be
anything but bad . . . . Freedom is nothing else
but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement
is a certainty of the worse.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_Resistance, Rebellion, and Death_ [1960]

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable
condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
--Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870—1938)
American jurist and associate justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court [1932—1938].
Quoted in _Illinois Bar Journal_ [1964].

In a free country there is much clamor, with little suffering:
in a despotic state there is little complaint but much suffering.
--Lazare Hippolyte Carnot (1801—1888)
French statesman.
Quoted in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 544 [1908].

Attack another's rights and you destroy your own.
--John Jay Chapman (1862—1933)
American author and critic.
"The Political Nursery" (mag.) [1897]

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for
people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
--Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
American linguistics scholar.
Interview with BBC [25 November 1992].

In the British Empire we not only look out across the seas
towards each other, but backwards to our own history, to
Magna Charta, to Habeas Corpus, to the Petition of Right,
to Trial by Jury, to the English Common Law and to
Parliamentary democracy. These are the milestones and
monuments that mark the path along which the British
race has marched to leadership and freedom. And over all
this, uniting each Dominion with the other and uniting us
all with our majestic past, is the golden circle of the Crown.
What is within the circle? Not only the glory of an ancient
unconquered people, but the hope, the sure hope, of a
broadening life for hundreds of millions of men.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Speech, Canada Club, London, England [20 April 1939].

Progress depends very largely on the encouragement of variety.
Whatever tends to standardize the community, to establish fixed
and rigid modes of thought, tends to fossilize society. ... It is the
ferment of ideas, the clash of disagreeing judgments, the privilege
of the individual to develop his own thoughts and shape his own
character, that makes progress possible.
--Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933)
American Republican statesman and President [1923—1929].
_Autobiography_ [1929]

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
_Table Talk_, l. 260 [1782]

Freedom is no heritage. Preservation of freedom
is a fresh challenge and a fresh conquest for each
generation. It is based on the religious concept
of the dignity of man. The discovery that man
is free is the greatest discovery of the ages.
--C. Donald Dallas (1881—1959)
Quoted in _The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life_ [1950].

You can only protect your liberties in this world by
protecting the other man's freedom. You can only
be free if I am free.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.
Addressing a jury in Chicago [1920],
quoted in Arthur Weinberg _Attorney for the Damned_ [1957].

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom,
those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active
and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any
number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles
upon sleeping men.
--Voltairine de Cleyre (1866—1912)
American anarchist.
_Anarchism and American Traditions_ [1908]

Men will never be free until the last king is
strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
--Denis Diderot (1713—1784)
French writer and philosopher.
Quoted in Fιlix Martν-Ibαρez _Tales of Philosophy_ [1967].

-

Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality
in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn
and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the
other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities
will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and
America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire.
To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be
sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when
repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is
below the average in economic ability desires equality;
those who are conscious of superior ability desire
freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.
--Will [William James] Durant (1885—1981) & Ariel Durant (1898—1981)
_The Lessons of History_ [1968]


If our economy of freedom fails to distribute
wealth as ably as it has created it, then the
road to dictatorship will be open to any
man who can persuasively promise security
to all.
--Will [William James] Durant (1885—1981) & Ariel Durant (1898—1981)
_The Lessons of History_ [1968]

-

-

Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany,
I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had
always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no,
the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the
great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days
gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the
universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. ... Only the
Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for
suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church
before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because
the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand
for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to
confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
"Time" (magazine), p. 38 [(23 December 1940]


Everything that is really great and inspiring
is created by the individual who can labor
in freedom.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
_Out Of My Later Years_ [1950]

-

-

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions,
the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned
and refreshed — else like a flower cut from its
life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890—1969),
American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII,
NATO commander, American President [1953—1961].
In a speech to the English Speaking Union, London [1944].


When shallow critics denounce the profit motive inherent
in our system of private enterprise, they ignore the fact that
it is an economic support of every human right we possess
and that without it, all rights would soon disappear. Their
demagoguery, unless combated by truth, can become as
great a danger to freedom as exists in any other threat.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890—1969),
American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII,
NATO commander, American President [1953—1961].
Inaugural Address, Columbia University [12 October 1948].

-

Sytems political or religious or racial
or national — will not just respect us
because we practice freedom, they
will fear us because we do.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
In "Harper's Magazine" [June 1956].

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she
is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a
nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose
outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about
her, and admit censorship.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.
_Two Cheers for Democracy_ [1951], "The Tercentenary of the Areopagitica"

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase
a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
"Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor" [11 November 1755]
in _The Papers of Benjamin Franklin_, ed. Leonard E. Labaree, vol. 6,
p. 242 [1963].

-

History suggests that capitalism is a
necessary condition for political freedom.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist; winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
_Capitalism and Freedom_ [1962]


A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of
outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither
equality nor freedom.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist; winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
_Free to Choose_ [1980] w/ Rose Friedman


Underlying most arguments against the free
market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist; winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
Quoted in Walter E. Williams
_Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism_, p. 175 [2008].

-

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular
education, without which neither justice nor freedom
can be permanently maintained.
--James A. Garfield (1831—1881)
20th President of the United States [1881].
"Letter of Acceptance" [12 July 1880]

-

The New York Post recently compiled a list of the things that
the New York City Council tried to ban - not all successfully
- just in 2006 alone: pit bulls; trans fats; aluminum baseball
bats; the purchase of tobacco by 18 to 20-year-olds; foie
gras; pedicabs in parks; new fast-food restaurants (but only
in poor neighborhoods); lobbyists from the floor of council
chambers; lobbying city agencies after working at the same
agency; vehicles in Central and Prospect parks; cell phones
in upscale restaurants; the sale of pork products made in a
processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization
dispute; mail-order pharmaceutical plans; candy-flavored
cigarettes; gas-station operators adjusting prices more than
once daily; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus; Wal-
Mart.

On Jan. 2 in Washington, D.C., the city council's smoking ban
was extended to bars and nightclubs. Even private clubs, where
members must pay through the teeth to associate voluntarily,
are forbidden to allow smoking on their own property. In some
states, you can't smoke in your car if young children are present
- your own children that is. In California, outdoor smoking bans
are all the rage. [. . . ]

--Jonah Goldberg (b. 1969)
American conservative commentator and author.
"Banned By The Man" [14 January 2007]

-

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies
there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no
constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help
it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts
of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled
will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the
denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow.
A society in which men recognize no check upon their
freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is
the possession of only a savage few; as we have
learned to our sorrow.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
_The Spirit of Liberty_, p. 190 [1944]


That community is already in the process of dissolution
where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible
enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed,
political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection;
where denunciation, without specification or backing,
takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes
freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual
supremacy of reason has become so timid that we
dare not enter out convictions in the open lists, to
win or lose.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
Speech to the Board of Regents, University of the State of N.Y. [24 October 1952].

-

-

The system of private property is the most important
guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own
property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of the
1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_The Road to Selfdom_ [1944], ch. 8 "Who, Whom?"


A society that does not recognize that each individual
has values of his own which he is entitled to follow
can have no respect for the dignity of the individual
and cannot really know freedom.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of the
1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_The Constitution of Liberty_ [1960]


I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy
the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the
striving after this mirage of social justice.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of
the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_Economic Freedom and Representative Government_ [1973]

-

For every man who lives without freedom,
the rest of us must face the guilt.
--Lillian Hellman (1905—1984)
American dramatist.
_Watch on the Rhine_, act II [1941]

Full of crooked little streets; but I tell you
Boston has opened, and kept open, more
turnpikes that lead straight to free thought
and free speech and free deeds than any
other city of live men or dead men.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ [1860]

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 we hate.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court, legal historian, and philosopher.
In a Supreme Court opinion "United States v. Schwimmer" [1928].

It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion — for
jackals, not men. Men who have the moral courage
to fight intelligently for freedom have the best prospects
of avoiding the fate of both live jackals and dead lions.
Survival is not the be-all and end-all of a life worthy of
man. Sometimes the worst thing we can know about a
man is that he has survived. Those who say life is worth
living at any cost have already written for themselves
an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person
they will not betray to stay alive. Man's vocation should
be the use of the arts of intelligence in behalf of human
freedom.
--Sidney Hook (1902—1989)
American educator and social philosopher.
"Solzhenitsyn and Western Freedom" [1979]

Free speech does not live many hours after
free industry and free commerce die.
--Herbert Hoover (1874—1964)
American Republican statesman, President 1929—1933.
In a speech in New York City [22 October 1928].

When we lose the right to be different,
we lose the privilege to be free.
--Charles Evans Hughes (1862—1948)
American professor of law, politician, and Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court [1930—1941].
Address at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts [17 June 1925].

Poverty curtails individual freedom. So do illiteracy,
prejudice, lack of education, and inability to obtain
the basic needs of life.
--Hubert H. Humphrey (1911—1978)
38th vice-president of the United States [1965—1969]
and liberal senator [1949—1965 & 1971—1978].
_The Cause is Mankind_ [1964]

You should never have your best trousers
on when you turn out to fight for freedom
and truth.
--Henrik Ibsen (1828—1906)
Norwegian playwright.
_An Enemy of the People_, act V [1882]

-

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money
for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves
and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
"A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" [12 June 1779].


[H]appiness ... does not depend on the condition of life in
which chance has placed [us], but is always the result of a
good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom
in all just pursuits.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
_Notes on the State of Virginia_, Query XIV [1781-83]


If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization, it expects what
never was and never will be.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Charles Yancey [6 January 1816].

-

Freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the
scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to
go where you want, and do as you desire, and
choose the leaders you please. You do not take
a person who for years has been hobbled by chains
and liberate him, bring him to the starting line
of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete
with all the others,' and still justly believe that
you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough
just to open the gates of opportunity. All citizens
must have the ability to walk through these gates.
This is the next and most profound stage of the battle
for civil rights. We seek not just legal equity but
human stability, not just equality as a right and
a theory but equality as a fact and equality as
a result.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].
Commencement Address at Howard University [4 June 1965].

Even our schools teach the globalist message that
there is 'nothing more horrible than war.' This is a
lie, as people who live under dictators well know.
Consider the killing fields of Cambodia, or Mao's
murderous reign. Consider the Soviet starvation of
Ukraine. Consider the death camps of the Nazis,
or China's destruction of Tibet, or just read the
newspapers about Saddam's Iraq where parents
were controlled through the torture of their children.
Do this, and you will know we are teaching a deadly
lie. For if we teach only the horrors of war, and not
also the horrors of tyranny, we teach cowardice.
And cowards can never stay free.
--Bob Just,
"Why the U.N. can never bring peace" [14 May 2003]

The superior virtue is not to be
free but to fight for freedom.
--Nikos Kazantzakis (1883—1957)
Cretan civil servant and foreign correspondent.
_The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises_ [1927]

From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens,
and when we allow freedom to ring, and when we let it ring from
every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city,
we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children,
black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the
old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty,
we are free at last!
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
Speech at Civil Rights March, Washington, D.C. [28 August 1963].

All we have of freedom — all we use or know —
This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
"The Old Issue" [9 October 1899]

A person in good health in a Western liberal democracy
is, in terms of his objective circumstances, one of the
most fortunate human beings ever to have walked the
surface of the earth.
--John Lanchester, "Pursuing happiness,"
_The New Yorker_ [27 February 2006]

-

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries
she With silent lips.

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddle masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

--Emma Lazarus (1849—1887)
American poet.
"The New Colossus" [1883]
Engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

-

A house divided against itself cannot stand.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
"House Divided" speech in the Lincoln-Douglas
debate, Springfield, Illinois [16 June 1858].

And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
"A Fable for Critics" [1848]

-

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom
produces; and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves
his cell he cannot bear the light of day: he is unable to discriminate
colours, or recognise faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him
into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The
blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations
which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let
them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years
men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides.
Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of
truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And at length a
system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.

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 for ever.

--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
"Milton" in _Edinburgh Review_ [August 1825]

-

Were the countries [of Africa] ready for independence?
Of course not. Nor was India, and the bloodshed that
followed the grant of independence there was incomparably
worse than anything that has happened since to any country.
Yet the decision of the Attlee Government was the only
realistic one. Equally we could not possibly have held by
force to our territories in Africa. We could not, with an
enormous force engaged, even continue to hold the
small island of Cyprus. General de Gaulle could not
contain Algeria. The march of men towards their
freedom can be guided, but not halted. Of course
there were risks in moving quickly. But the risks of
moving slowly were far greater.
--Iain Macleod (1913—1970)
British Conservative Party politician and government minister.
In _The Spectator_, p.127 [13 January 1964].

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there
are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of
the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those
in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
--James Madison (1751—1836)
Fourth president of the United States [1809—1817].
In a speech in the Virginia Convention [16 June 1788].

You can't separate peace from freedom because
no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
--Malcolm X (1925—1965)
American civil rights campaigner.
Speech in New York City [7 January 1965].

If a nation values anything more than
freedom, it will lose its freedom.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_Strictly Personal_, ch. 31 [1941]

Economic independence is the foundation
of the only sort of freedom worth a damn.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Quoted in Guy J. Forgue (ed.) _Letters of H. L. Mencken_ [1961].

-

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 impede their efforts to obtain it.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_ [1859]


After the primary necessities of food and
raiment, freedom is the first and strongest
want of human nature.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_The Subjection of Women_, 4, [1869]

-

Not for the flag,
Of any land because myself was born there,
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that land where man is free,
And that will I defend.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892—1950)
American poet.
"Not For a Nation"

-

None can love freedom heartily, but good men;
the rest love not freedom but license.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
_Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_ [1649]


What more oft, in nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty —
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
Quoted in Henry Offley
_The Church and the Puritans, 1570—1660_, p. 200 [1887].

-




The freedom of any society varies proportionately
with the volume of its laughter.
--Zero Mostel (1915—1977)
Stage actor who was blacklisted in the 1950s.
Quoted in "Think" [pub. by IBM, 1962].

In Czechoslovakia there is no such thing as freedom of the
press. In the United States there is no such thing as freedom
from the press.
--Martina Navratilova (b. 1957)
Czech-born American tennis player.
Quoted in Lee Green _Sportswit_ [1984].

-

Nations live or die by the way they respond to the particular
challenges they face. Those challenges may be internal or
external; they may be faced by a nation alone or in concert
with other nations; they may come gradually or suddenly.
There is no immutable law of nature that says only the
unjust will be afflicted, or that the just will prevail. While
might certainly does not make right, neither does right by
itself make might. The time when a nation most craves ease
may be the moment when it can least afford to let down its
guard. The moment when it most wishes it could address
its domestic needs may be the moment when it most
urgently has to confront an external threat. The nation
that survives is the one that rises to meet that moment:
that has the wisdom to recognize the threat and the will
to turn it back, and that does so before it is too late. ...

The naοve notion that we can preserve freedom by exuding
goodwill is not only silly, but dangerous. The more adherents
it wins, the more it tempts the aggressor.

--Richard Nixon (1913—1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969—1974].
_The Real War_ [1980]

-

As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to
say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom
can never be lost, and science can never regress.
--J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904—1967)
American physicist and the director of the Manhattan Project.
In "Life" magazine [10 October 1949].

Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely
path to liberty. With money comes power over the world.
Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation.
Businesses can be started, homes built, communities
formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But
liberals aren't very interested in such real and material
freedoms. They have a more innocent — not to say
toddlerlike — idea of freedom. Liberals want the
freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say
bad words and to expose their private parts in art
museums.
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
_Give War A Chance_ "Introduction" [1992]

-

O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only
the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of
the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom
hath been hunted round the globe. Asian, and Africa
have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a
stranger and England hath given her warning to
depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time
an asylun for mankind.
--Thomas Paine (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
_Common Sense_ [1776]


What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; — 'Tis dearness
only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to set 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 (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
"The American Crisis" (a pamphlet) # 1 [19 December 1776]


Those who expect to receive the blessings of freedom
must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
--Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
_The American Crisis_ #4 [12 September 1777]

-

Is any man free except the one who
can pass his life as he pleases?
--Persius [Aulus Persius Flaccus] (34—64 A.D.)
Stoic poet.
_Satires_, V. 83

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 Younger, (1759—1806)
British prime minister [1783—1801, 1804—1806]
during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Speech to the House of Commons on the India Bill [18 November 1783].

-

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in
Don't Fence Me In

--Cole Porter (1892—1964)
American songwriter.
"Don't Fence Me In"
[written in 1934 & published in 1944]
It was based on a poem by Bob Fletcher.

-

-

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

--Charles M. Province
"It Is the Soldier" [1970]

-

It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's
someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's
service, there's someone being served. The man who
speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters.
And intends to be the master. But if you ever hear a
man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your
natural right, that your first duty is to yourself — that
will be the man who's not after your soul.
--Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
_The Fountainhead_ [1943], pt. 4, ch. 14

-

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
Speech to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce [30 March 1961].


As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment
of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the
wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become
reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand
faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
"Tear Down This Wall" speech, West Berlin [12 June 1987]

& see:

It was difficult not to cringe during Reagan's speech in 1987.
He didn't leave a single Berlin clichι out of his script. At the
end of it, most experts agreed that his demand for the removal
of the Wall was inopportune, utopian and crazy.

Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from
the map. Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the
East Germans who played the larger role. When analysts are
confronted by real people, amazing things can happen. And
maybe history can repeat itself. Maybe the people of Syria,
Iran or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves
from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did.
When the voter turnout in Iraq recently exceeded that of
many Western nations, the chorus of critique from Iraq
alarmists was, at least for a couple of days, quieted. Just
as quiet as the chorus of Germany experts on the night
of Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall fell.

Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right,
just like Reagan was then.

--Claus Christian Malzahn, "Could George W. Bush Be Right?",
Der Spiegel [23 February 2005]

-

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and
expression — everywhere in the world. The second is
freedom of every person to worship God in his own
way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom
from want. ... everywhere in the world. The fourth
is freedom from fear ... anywhere in the world.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
Message to Congress [6 January 1941].

Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
--George Frederick Root (1820—1895)
American musician and music publisher.
"The Battle Cry of Freedom" [1863]

Live free or die.
--John Stark (1728—1822)
American revolutionary officer.
Letter "To My Friends and Fellow Soldiers" [31 July 1809].

My definition of a free society is a society
where it is safe to be unpopular.
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.
In a speech in Detroit, Michigan [7 October 1952].

Such being the happiness of the times, that you
may think as you wish, and speak as you think.
--Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
(c.55—c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian.
_The Annals_ [109], I. 1.

Sir Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the
birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than
they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they
lost everything — security, comfort, and freedom. This was
because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to
give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom
from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased
to be free.
--Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].
"The Moral Foundations of Society,"
Lecture in Hillsdale [Michigan] College's Center for Constructive
Alternatives seminar, "God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity
in the 20th Century" [November 1994].

Happiness depends on being free, and
freedom depends on being courageous.
The secret of freedom is courage.
--Thucydides (c.460—c.400 B.C.)
Greek historian of Athens.
_History of the Peloponnesian War_, bk. 2, ch. 4

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave
men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be
inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in
little ones. [...] Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day
and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not
drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till
they are led to surrender the exercise of their will.
--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859)
French historian and politician.
_Democracy in America_, vol. 2, ch. 6 [1840]

I am inordinately proud these days of the quill, for
it has shown itself, historically, to be the hypodermic
which inoculates men and keeps the germ of freedom
always in circulation, so that there are individuals
in every time in every land who are the carriers, the
Typhoid Mary's, capable of infecting others by mere
contact and example. These persons are feared by
every tyrant — who shows his fear by burning the
books and destroying the individuals.
--E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985)
American essayist and literary stylist.
"Freedom" written in July 1940, in _One Man's Meat_ [1944].

The right to silence is more than the mere right to refuse to answer
incriminating questions. It is the respect which society pays to the
inviolability of each man's soul in an era when hypnotism, narco-
analysis, truth serums, lie detectors and other scientific devices
are being used to force the revelation of truths by persons who
desire to keep them secret. ... It is a last bastion against an ever
more omnipotent government. It is the final shield against invasion
of the soul. Protection from this kind of assault is the sine qua non
of the essential dignity of man.
--Edward Bennett Williams (1920—1988)
American lawyer.
_One Man's Freedom_, ch. 8 [1962]

Every generation must wage a new war for freedom
against new forces that seek through new devices
to enslave mankind.
--Plank of the platform of the Conference for Progressive Political Action [1924].

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