quotations about liberty
And now that the legislator and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty: for liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and His works.
FREDERICK BASTIAT
The Law
Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners
The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
"Importance of Religion to Society", The Works of William E. Channing
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
EDMUND BURKE
second speech on Conciliation with America, 1775
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.
PATRICK HENRY
speech on the Federal Constitution at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Jun. 5, 1788
Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.
GILBERT DU MOTIER
Declaration of the Rights of Man