Welcome to our curated collection of liberty quotes! Liberty, often considered a fundamental value in democratic societies, encompasses various aspects of freedom, autonomy, and individual rights. Throughout history, thinkers, leaders, and activists have articulated profound insights and perspectives on the importance of liberty in human life.
From philosophers to politicians, from poets to activists, voices from diverse backgrounds and eras have championed liberty as essential for the flourishing of individuals and societies alike. These quotes not only reflect the timeless struggle for liberty but also inspire contemplation and action in its pursuit.
Below, you’ll find a compilation of quotes that encapsulate the essence of liberty. Whether you seek inspiration, reflection, or simply a deeper understanding of this crucial concept, these quotes offer insights and perspectives that resonate across time and culture. Feel free to copy them, pair them with images, or enhance them with stylish fonts to share and spread the message of liberty.
An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason. Jon Meacham
Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril. William Lloyd Garrison
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thomas Jefferson
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. William Hazlitt
I am a practicing Catholic, not an evangelical Christian, but in 2016 I stood with millions of evangelicals who decided that Donald Trump would be the best person to fight for our religious liberty. Rachel Campos-Duffy
Before the tribunal of nature, a man has no more right to life than a rattlesnake; he has no more right to liberty than any wild beast; his right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing but a license to maintain the struggle for existence, if he can find within himself the powers with which to do it. William Graham Sumner
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. Samuel Adams
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self. Francis Bacon
Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint. Daniel Webster
What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. Robert Green Ingersoll
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages. Michel de Montaigne
Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches. Will Rogers
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Frederic Bastiat
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. Henry David Thoreau
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. Sallust
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 government to the utmost. Aristotle
There shall be no solution to this race problem until you, yourselves, strike the blow for liberty. Marcus Garvey
A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty. Nadia Boulanger
It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren. Sandra Day O’Connor
I believe our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognized symbol that stands for liberty, and freedom. It is the history of our nation, and it’s marked by the blood of those who died defending it. John Thune
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. Frank Herbert
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. Aldous Huxley
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. Woodrow Wilson
Without Liberty, Law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without Law, Liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. James Q. Wilson
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country. Marquis de Lafayette
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. Edmund Burke
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. Alexander Hamilton
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. Khalil Gibran
Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road. Albert Camus
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people. John Adams
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
I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love. W. E. B. Du Bois
I say, traitors; as some men live upon the reward of treachery, for their quiet and liberty; if it may be called a liberty, as it is redeemed with the betraying of the interest of Christ, and the blood of His people. Donald Cargill
The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws. Walt Whitman
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Charlie Chaplin
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. Edward Gibbon
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace. Simone Weil
The truth is that men are tired of liberty. Benito Mussolini
There are quite a lot of YouTube clips of me that have gone viral. One that I think of is of a young woman at a lecture I was giving – she came from Liberty University, which is a ludicrous religious institution. She said, ‘What if you are wrong?’ and I answered that rather briefly, and that’s gone viral. Richard Dawkins
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. Learned Hand
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. John Milton
While a people preserves its language; it preserves the marks of liberty. Jose Rizal
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty. Abraham Lincoln
It appears first, that liberty is a natural, and government an adventitious right, because all men were originally free. Thomas Clarkson
Every law is an infraction of liberty. Jeremy Bentham
For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility. Jacques Delors
So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you. B. R. Ambedkar
Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all – liberty! James Monroe
When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
I claim for Canada this, that in future Canada shall be at liberty to act or not act, to interfere or not interfere, to do just as she pleases, and that she shall reserve to herself the right to judge whether or not there is cause for her to act. Wilfrid Laurier
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories. Wendell Phillips
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe. Dan Quayle
‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. Friedrich August von Hayek
Liberty does not exist where rights are on one side and power on the other. To be liberty, rights must be armed with vital powers. A people cannot be free who do not participate in the control of the government which operates upon them. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II
The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer… form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws. Andrew Jackson
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. Plato
Most people want security in this world, not liberty. H. L. Mencken
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and yelling, ‘You want a piece of me?’ Robin Williams
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
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. George Washington
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. Samuel Johnson
In society, liberty for one may mean the suppression of liberty for others. Gunnar Myrdal
Mr. President how long must women wait to get their liberty? Let us have the rights we deserve. Alice Paul
Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist. Jose Marti
Peace is liberty in tranquillity. Marcus Tullius Cicero
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. Louis D. Brandeis
I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity. B. R. Ambedkar
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. Ronald Reagan
Collective action remains the best way of renewing the march towards the great trinity of liberty, equality, and solidarity. Guy Standing
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. James Madison
Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty. Samuel Gompers
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa. Mikhail Bakunin
Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted. Franz Kafka
All I’m for is the liberty of the individual. John Wayne
People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals. Muhammad Iqbal
Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty. Ho Chi Minh
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought. John Dalberg-Acton
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. John Adams
Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs. Isaiah Berlin
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power. James Madison
Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite. Sri Aurobindo
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate. Bertrand Russell
The right of nature… is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life. Thomas Hobbes
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus’ famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. Theodore Roosevelt
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos. Will Durant
I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in Saint-Domingue. I work to bring them into existence. Unite yourselves to us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause. Toussaint Louverture
Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed. And I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching Big Government that would stop your success, I want that organization, that element or that person to fail. I want you to succeed. Rush Limbaugh
I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me. Harriet Tubman
All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. John Locke
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. Alexis de Tocqueville
Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers. Tecumseh
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
I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast. Viktor E. Frankl
There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. Margaret Thatcher
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. George Bernard Shaw
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. John F. Kennedy