US
Presidents Quotes on Freedom
Quotes that should scare you to death and wake you up!
Other Famous Freedom
Quotes
The
United States
Constitution
The
Bill of Rights
Declaration
of
Independence
"The
moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in
the dawn of life — the children; the twilight of life — the elderly;
and the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped."
Humphrey,
Hubert 38th vice president of the United States (1911-1978)
"I
only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
Hale,
Nathan American soldier (1755–1776)
There
is the National Flag. He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds
rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a foreign
land, the flag is companionship and country itself, with all its
endearment...The very colors have a language which was recognized by our
fathers; white is for purity; red, for valor; blue, for justice. And
altogether, bunting, stripes, stars, and colors, blazing in the sky, make
the flag of our country, to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld
by all our hands.
Charles
Sumner
"A thoughtful mind,
when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation
itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in
the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which
belongs to the Nation which belongs to the Nation that sets it
forth."
Henry Ward Beecher from The American Flag
"I
love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from
distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds
to shrink but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his
conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"Ignorance
is of a peculiar nature. Once dispelled it is impossible to re-establish
it."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"It
is necessary to the happiness of a man that he be mentally faithful to
himself."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"The
world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my
religion."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"Those
who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the
fatigue of supporting it."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"Those
who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the
fatigues of supporting it."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"Those
who expect to reap the blessings of freedom…must undergo the fatigue of
supporting it."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"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."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"We
fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the
earth for honest men to live in."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"When
men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits
the horizon."
Paine,
Thomas Anglo-American political theorist and writer (1737-1809)
"The
rights of the individual should be the primary object of all
governments"
Warren,
Mercy Otis Poet (1728-1814)
"There
is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may
order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you."
Hazlitt,
William English essayist (1778–1830)
"Every
tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom—for himself."
Hubbard,
Elbert US editor and publisher (1856–1915)
"Tyranny
and anarchy are never far asunder."
Rentham,
Jeremy
"Tyrants
are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave
them."
Santayana,
George American philosopher and poet (1863-1952)
"The
closed door and the sealed lips are prerequisites to tyranny."
Stanton,
Frank L.
Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think
what we like and say what we think.
Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr.
1860
Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do
not be silenced.
Bertrand
Russell
Your rights are your security. When you, 'give up your rights for
security", it's not security you get, but slavery.'
unknown
Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in
preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people
are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of
authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.
Ron
Paul
Texas libertarian Republican
Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that
would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison
people without due process and punish dissent.
Laura
W. Murphy
Director of the ACLU,
October 12, 2001 in reference to the US Patriot Act
The unmistakable message that is sent by this policy is that people who
demonstrate risk spending the night in jail because of their part in a
demonstration... And I think what follows from that is that it is a clear
effort to discourage people - and indeed punish people - from
participating in demonstrations.
Christopher
Dunn, a lawyer for the New York Civil Liberties Union
(Referring
to New York City's unconstitutional policy of jailing
demonstrators overnight for minor offenses, a policy since rescinded)
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly
free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they
try to poison you. If this fails, too, they finish by loading honors on
your head.
Jean
Cocteau
I
studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men
and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand,
with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.
Henry Truman
The first responsibility of the press is to use its freedom to protect the
rights and liberties of all individuals. The press must speak out, and, if
the occasion arises, raise bloody hell.
Herblock
1957
The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the
oppressed.
Steven
Biko
We can have democracy in this country or we can have great concentrated
wealth in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.
Louis
Brandeis
Supreme Court Justice
1941
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor
freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want rain without
thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many
waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it
never will.
Frederick
Douglass
Canandaigua, N.Y., Aug. 3, 1857
Ours was a wealthy society. No one suffered from want. All had the right
to food, clothing and shelter. All shared in the bounty of the spiritual
ceremonies and the natural world. No one stood in any material
relationship of power over anyone else. No one could deny any one access
to the things they needed. All in all, before the colonists came, ours was
a beautiful and rewarding way of life.
Chief
Segwalise
of the Iriquois
Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend
freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the
sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a
roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture
gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.
Virginia
Woolf
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance.
John
Philpot Curran
1790
Democracy is great not just because the majority prevails but because it
is safe to be in the minority.
Adlai
Stevenson
statesman
(1900-1965)
Give me liberty or give me death.
Patrick
Henry
Each
time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others
they send forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million
different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that
can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert
F Kennedy
The
two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the
widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second,
the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.
Edward
Dowling
It's
when we're given choice that we sit with the gods and design ourselves.
Dorothy
Gilman
For
to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way
that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson
Mandela
When
asked what he thought of Western civilization: "It would be a good
idea."
Mahatma
Gandhi
(1869-1948)
The
act of witness is very important. Without journalism there's no democracy.
Without journalism, there's no freedom.
Peter
Howe
It
is in the inherent nature of human beings to yearn for freedom, equality
and dignity. Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue
the basic desire for freedom and dignity.
H.
H. The Dalai Lama
A
free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
Adlai
Stevenson
As
a matter of general principle, I believe that there can be no doubt that
criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of
democratic government. . . Too many people desire to suppress criticism
simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy to know
that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better
for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned,
because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do
the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the
enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.
Robert
A. Taft
Republican Senator from Ohio
Dec. 19, 1941
Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find
out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the
exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and
these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or
with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress.
Frederick
Douglass
War
has always diminished our freedom. When our freedom has expanded, it has
not come as a result of war or of anything the government has done but as
a result of what citizens have done.
Howard
Zinn
A
clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to
supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist
regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post
in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to
the Nazi regime....
William
E. Dodd
US Ambassador to Germany, 1937
as quoted in the NY Times
We
who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through
the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They
may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that
everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose one's own way.
Viktor
Frankl
author, neurologist and psychiatrist
Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Rabindranath
Tagore
(1861-1941)
Gitanjali, 1912
All
good things are wild and free.
Henry
David Thoreau
Everybody's
talking about people breaking into houses but there are more people in the
world who want to break out of houses.
Thornton
Wilder
writer
(1897-1975)
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 huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma
Lazarus
Democracies
die behind closed doors.
Judge
Damon J. Keith
U.S. Appeals Court
Rome
is strangling my people and my country... the whole earth. But not
forever!
I tell you, the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom such as
the world has
never heard before.
Ben
Hur
In
a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its
value is not in its taste, but in its effects.
J.
William Fulbright
US Senator
(1905-1995)
So
long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their
rights, we'll be called a democracy.
Roger
Baldwin
civil rights advocate
(1884-1981)
Those
who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want
crops without plowing the ground.
Frederick
Douglass
abolitionist, editor and orator
(1817-1895)
Irreverence
is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.
Mark
Twain
As
nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the
air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
William
O. Douglas
judge
(1898-1980)
That is the true genius of America - a faith in the simple dreams of its
people. The insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children
at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can
say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on
the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without
paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son.
That we can participate in the political process without fear of
retribution, and that our votes will be counted - or at least, most of the
time.
People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they
sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can
make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that
the doors of opportunity remain open to all.
It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's
keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our
individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. E
pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The
hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young
naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a
millworker's son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with
a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The
audacity of hope!
Barack
Obama
Democratic Convention 2004
Our
Declaration of Independence proclaims government of the people, by the
people, for the people, not government of the Exxons, for the General
Motors, by the Halliburtons.
Ralph
Nader
Everything
secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe
that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Lord
Acton
historian
(1834-1902)
Whenever
'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most
likely a scoundrel.
H.L.
Mencken
writer, editor, and critic
(1880-1956)
All
things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong
appreciation for the values of the Christian community. In a religious
environment the value system is set. That's not the case in a public
school where there are so many different kids with different kinds of
values.
Rod
Paige
The
Secretary of Education
2003
Jesus
Christ Joseph Smith
Jr.
Brigham Young
John Taylor
Wilford Woodruff
Lorenzo Snow
Joseph F. Smith
Heber J. Grant
George A. Smith
David O. McKay
Joseph F. Smith
Harold B. Lee
Spencer Kimball Ezra T. Benson Howard Hunter
Gordon Hinckley First Presidency Elders
