Liberty

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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. ~ Lord Acton

Liberty is a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will.

See also: Freedom

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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. ~ Learned Hand

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

• Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend.
  • The 9/11 Commission Report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

• Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...
  • Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

• By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
  • Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

• Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
  • Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

• There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
  • John Adams, in notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)

• Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.
  • John Adams, in a letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814)

• If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
  • Samuel Adams, in a speech at the Philadelphia State House (1 August 1776)

• Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty.
  • Ethan Allen, as quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963)

• 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, in Olmstead v. United States (1928)

• Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
  • Edmund Burke, in a letter to M. de Menonville (October 1789)

• It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
  • John Philpot Curran, "Speech On the Right of Election" (1790) in Speeches of John Philpot Curran (1811) "Speech of Mr. Curran, On the Right of Election of Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin, Delivered Before the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland, 1790". Speeches of John Philpot Curran, Esq: With a Brief Sketch of the History of Ireland a Biographical Account of Mr. Curran. 2. New York: I. Riley. 1811. pp. pp. 235-236. 

• Indeed nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty: For as violations of the rights of the governed, are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner, as to touch individuals but slightly. Thus they are disregarded. The power or profit that arises from these violations centering in few persons, is to them considerable. For this reason the governors having in view their particular purposes, successively preserve an uniformity of conduct for attaining them. They regularly increase the first injuries, till at length the inattentive people are compelled to perceive the heaviness of their burthens — They begin to complain and inquire — but too late. They find their oppressors so strengthened by success, and themselves so entangled in examples of express authority on the part of their rulers, and of tacit recognition on their own part, that they are quite confounded : for millions entertain no other idea of the legality of power, than it is founded on the exercise of power.
  • John Dickenson, in The Political Writings of John Dickinson, Esquire Vol. I (1801), Letter XI

• The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
  • Frederick Douglass, in an address on West India Emancipation (4 August 1857)

• Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world.
  • Oliver Ellsworth, in "A Landholder, III" in The Connecticut Courant No. 1191, (19 November 1787), also in Essays On The Constitution Of The United States, Published During Its Discussion By The People, 1787-1788 (1892) edited by Paul Leicester Ford, p. 146

• Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
  • Benjamin Franklin, in the Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738

• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
  • Benjamin Franklin, written within quotation marks as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, but almost certainly his original thought, sometime shortly before 17 February 1755. See Memoirs of the Life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818), edited by WIlliam Temple Franklin

• Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
  • Benjamin Franklin, in a variant used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759). This book wa published by Franklin, and probably written by Richard Jackson; in a letter denying that he was the author, Franklin claimed responsibility only for some small excerpts.

• What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. 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… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the 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 on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow.
  What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.
  • Learned Hand, in "The Spirit of Liberty" - a speech at "I Am an American Day" ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944)

• It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.... It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
  • Patrick Henry, Speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (23 March 1775); first published in Life and Character of Patrick Henry (1817) by William Wirt

• But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.
  • Andrew Jackson, in his Farewell Address, (1837-03-04), recalling what, by then, had reached the status of a proverb.

• The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
  • Thomas Jefferson, in Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

• 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, in the US Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776)

• The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.
  • Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith (13 November 1787)

• The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. As yet our spirits are free.
  • Thomas Jefferson, letter to Colonel Carrington (27 May 1788)

• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
  • Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stewart (23 December 1791)

• It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
  • Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush (21 April 1803)

• Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But 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 Jefferson, letter to Isaac H. Tiffany (4 April 1819)

• In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas
  • Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.
  • Rupertus Meldenius ((Peter Meiderlin) in Paraenesis votiva pro Pace Ecclesiae ad Theologos Augustanae Confessionis, Auctore Ruperto Meldenio Theologo (c. 1627). Some forms of this statement have been attributed to Richard Baxter, but though he used the motto, he himself attributed it to Meldenius.

• The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.
  • John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

• That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That 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 (1859)

• He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
  • Thomas Paine, in First Principles of Government (1795)

• It is incorrect to think of liberty as synonymous with unrestrained action. Liberty does not and cannot include any action, regardless of sponsorship, which lessens the liberty of a single human being. To argue contrarily is to claim that liberty can be composed of liberty negations, patently absurd. Unrestraint carried to the point of impairing the liberty of others is the exercise of license, not liberty. To minimize the exercise of license is to maximize the area of liberty. Ideally, government would restrain license, not indulge in it; make it difficult, not easy; disgraceful, not popular. A government that does otherwise is licentious, not liberal.
  • Leonard E. Read, in The Freeman

• Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
  • Ronald Reagan, in an address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (30 March 1961)

• Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.…The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.
  • Ronald Reagan, in The Guardian [London] (14 June 1989)

• Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew.
  • Kenneth W. Royce, in Boston's Gun Bible

• Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
  • Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus) in Histories

• The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others.
  No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty.
  • Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670)

• The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.
  • Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670)

• The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.
  • Justice George Sutherland, in his dissenting opinion on Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 301 US 141 (1938)

• No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
  • Gideon J. Tucker in Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B. (1866)

• It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
  • Earl Warren, in United States v. Robel (1967)

[edit] Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• A day, an hour of virtuous liberty,
  Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
  • Joseph Addison, p. 377.

• The first freedom is freedom from sin.
  • Martin Luther, p. 377.

• He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
  • Author not cited; reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 377.

• There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.
  • Charles Kingsley, p. 377.

• It is a question not often considered, whether we are not just as independent when we choose an upright and godly course, even if our fathers did walk in it, as when we follow somebody's example in sin. Indeed the highest and truest independence is that which always elects to do right.
  • Henry M. King, p. 377.

• Conquer thyself. Till thou hast done that, thou art a slave; for it is almost as well to be in subjection to another's appetite as thine own.
  • Robert Burton, p. 377.

• The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man, and made courageous in the defense of a trust and the prosecution of duty.
  • William G. Simms, p. 378.

• Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty.
  • Savonarola, p. 378.

• This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 378.

• The moment you accept God's ordering, that moment your work ceases to be a task, and becomes your calling; you pass from bondage to freedom, from the shadow-land of life into life itself.
  • H. Clay Trumbull, p. 378.

• Not until right is founded upon reverence, will it be secure; not until duty is based upon love, will it be complete; not until liberty is based on eternal principles, will it be full, equal, lofty, and universal.
  • Henry Giles, p. 378.

• The great comprehensive truths, written on every page of our history, are these: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom none but virtue; virtue none but knowledge; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or immortal hope,except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion.
  • Josiah Quincy, p. 378.

• What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils, for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
  • Edmund Burke, p. 379.

• That religion which holds that all men are equal in the sight of the great Father will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the sight of the law.
  • Alexis De Tocqueville, p. 379.

• Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts — the cradle of its infancy, and the Divine source of its claims.
  • Alexis De Tocqueville, p. 379.

• True liberty can exist only when justice is equally administered to all.
  • Lord Mansfield, p. 379.

• The Spirit of God first imparts love; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the present time.
  • D. L. Moody, p. 379.

• O, we all long for the day, the blessed day, when freedom shall at least be co-extensive with Christendom; when a slave political or domestic, shall not tread on an atom upon which the cross of Calvary has cast its shadow; when the baptism of the crucified shall be on every brow, the seal of a heavenly sonship; when the fire of a new Pentecost shall melt asunder, by its divine heat of charity, the bond which wrong or prejudice has fastened; when, to touch any spot over the wide sweep of God's Christianized earth, any spot which the gospel of the Saviour has ever visited, which the name of the Saviour has ever sanctified, shall be, in itself, the spell of a complete deliverance, the magic of a perfect franchise.
  • Henry Giles, p. 379.

• Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters; it carries the whole man along with it.
  • Tertullian, p. 380.

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