Quotes on Freedom

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long for.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority

As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

For so I created them free and free they must remain.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

One man with courage is a majority.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.

The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.