A Quote by David Hume

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.

David Hume

Quote Topics

Any Kind Liberty Lost Once Seldom

Quote Author

David Hume
Scottish - Philosopher
May 7, 1711 - August 25, 1776

It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received.

David Hume

Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.

David Hume

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams

When the People contend for their Liberty, they seldom get anything by their Victory but new masters. Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good Terms.

Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet

The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice.

Edmund Burke

Away with the idea of getting independence first, and looking for liberty afterwards... Our liberties, once lost, may be lost forever.

Alexander H. Stephens

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams

...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.

John Adams

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

John Peter Zenger

Liberty, like chastity, once lost, can never be regained in its original purity.

Josh Billings

We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it.

Mignon McLaughlin

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.

Arthur C. Clarke

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.

Jane Austen

TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty.