Quotes on Liberty

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate wherever the Government assumes a freer aspect,& the laws favor a subdivision of property.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.