"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." -John Stuart Mill
"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it." -Voltaire
"To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice." -The Magna Carta
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found
in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in
the government to the utmost." -Aristotle
"The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is
the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only
when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice." -John Rawls
"The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance." -John
Rawls
"Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be
free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an inalienable ingredient
in what makes human beings human." -Isaiah Berlin
"Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create
himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is
thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does."
-Jean-Paul Sartre
"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for
their rights, we'll be called a democracy." -Roger Baldwin
"We must remember that a right lost to one is lost to all." -William
Reece Smith, Jr.
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the government's purposes are beneficial. The greatest dangers to
liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but
without understanding." -Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire
"When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal
drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know
I'm innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing
because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the first amendment, and
I can't say anything at all." -Tim Freeman
"Conscience is the chamber of justice." -Origen
"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom
to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt." -Bergen
Evans
"Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a
mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility
of saying No to any authority--literary, artistic, philosophic,
religious, social and even political." -Ignazio Silone
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood
of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson
"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself
secure." -Bertrand Russell
"Most people want security in this world, not liberty." -H. L. Mencken
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being
overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you
try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price
is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -Rudyard
Kipling
"Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free." -Ralph
Waldo Emerson
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George
Bernard Shaw
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
"I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me
live my life, the way I want to." -Jimi Hendrix
"Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on
society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians,
lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should
always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who
believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or
economic status, is a fool." -John J. Miller
"A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular." -Adlai
Stevenson
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would
do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -Lyndon
Johnson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and
bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in
government." -Thomas Jefferson
"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 evilminded rulers.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -Justice Louis D.
Brandeis
"Respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free
and prosperous world, ... and that only through freedom can peace and
prosperity be realized." -Preamble to the Libertarian Platform
"The man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for
another's." -Aristotle
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."
-Voltaire
"The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right."
-William Safire
"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal
that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they
ought to be." -William Hazlitt
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