Top 1200 Individual Liberty Quotes & Sayings

Anarchism is for liberty, and neither for nor against anything else. Anarchy is the mother of co-operation, yes, just as liberty is the mother of order; but, as a matter of definition, liberty is not order nor is Anarchism co-operation. I define Anarchism as the belief in the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty; or, in other words, as the belief in every liberty except the liberty to invade.

Coincident with the right of individual property under the provisions of our Government is the right of individual property. . . . When once the right of the individual to liberty and equality is admitted, there is no escape from the conclusion that he alone is entitled to the rewards of his own industry. Any other conclusion would necessarily imply either privilege or servitude.

The political Right likes to champion individual rights and individual liberty, but it has also worked to enforce morality in relation to abortion, gambling, and homosexuality.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

Individual liberty is individual power.

Individual liberty is allowed to man only to a certain extent. He cannot forget that he is a social being and his individual liberty has to be curtailed at every step.

All I'm for is the liberty of the individual.

Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.

Liberty (individual freedom) is the prize, responsibility the price.

There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all. There is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security for all.

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...

Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.

It clearly follows that to make men moral it is necessary to make their social environment moral. And that can be done in only one way; by assuring the triumph of justice, that is, the complete liberty of everyone in the most perfect equality for all. Inequality of conditions and rights, and the resulting lack of liberty for all, is the great collective iniquity begetting all individual iniquities.

Liberty is the result of free individual action,energy and independence.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

Among the immediate obligations and duties resting upon members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today, and one of the most urgent and pressing for attention and action of all liberty loving people, is the preservation of individual liberty.

I do esteem individual liberty above everything.

The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product and a mark of civilization.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

The issue of religious liberty is absolutely critical. America was founded on three different types of liberty: political liberty, economic liberty, and religious and civil liberty. It's remarkable that, one-by-one, these strands of liberty are coming under fierce attack from the Left. And that's particularly ironic because "liberal" derives from a word which means "liberty," the free man as opposed to the slave. This liberalism which we're saddled with today isn't a real liberalism at all, but a gangster style of politics masquerading as liberalism.

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.

The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact.

Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.

Claiming for ourselves liberty of conscience, liberty to worship, we shall see to it that every other individual enjoys the same right.

I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?

It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

If every person has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force - for the same reason - cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Libertarian presidential candidate André Marrou's idea is that "government power is opposed to individual liberty." Must we still debate such sophomoric notions?... Besides, liberty, although very important, is not the only value.

Slavery is perhaps the greatest affront to the fundamental principle of individual liberty.

Government has no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of the government and the liberty of the citizen or subject in the political state.

The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.

The message of individual liberty and peace is contagious.

'Negative liberty' is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything - like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.

Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.

You go back and you examine the reasons America was founded, why it worked, what was magic about it, and you find out that people wanted to come here for cultural reasons, in addition to economic. It was rooted in liberty. It was rooted in freedom. It was rooted in the recognition of the primacy of the individual, the power of the individual over government in this country.

Our Constitution exists to secure individual freedom, the essential condition of human flourishing. Liberty is not provided by government; liberty preexists government. It's our natural birthright, not a gift from the sovereign. Our founders upended things and divided power to enshrine a promise, not a process.

Freedom and Liberty cannot exist without Individual Responsibilty. Failure to exercise Individual Responsibilty forfeits your right to self-governance and delivers it to Government which, through force, will set the parameters of your life.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization, though then, it is true, it had for the most part no value, since the individual was scarcely in a position to defend it. The development of civilization imposes restrictions on it, and justice demands that no one shall escape those restrictions.

Liberty, then, is the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.

What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.

"Little Brother" sounds an optimistic warning. It extrapolates from current events to remind us of the ever-growing threats to liberty. But it also notes that liberty ultimately resides in our individual attitudes and actions. In our increasingly authoritarian world, I especially hope that teenagers and young adults will read it - and then persuade their peers, parents and teachers to follow suit.

I have always in my own thought summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world, 'A free field and no favor.'

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

America stands for individual liberty, but that means an ordered liberty.

Since the end of WWII, France's steady movement away from Western ideas of individual liberty and self-determination - and toward collectivist action and conformance - has created a people overly dependent on government, hobbled by crippling taxes and lacking in individual initiative.

At the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man...is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, exist for that person's benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society.

Democracy is liberty - a liberty which does not infringe on the liberty nor encroach on the rights of others; a liberty which maintains strict discipline, and makes law its guarantee and the basis of its exercise. This alone is true liberty; this alone can produce true democracy.

Any individual can contribute its own belief. And our society or even our government are made by the people. The people would have the final voice, but it requires each individual to act. If we don't act, then the result is very clear. So for too long Americans take liberty as granted. We think we are in the safe hand, the democracy and the liberty, which is not true. And it can be even getting much worse than today.

Liberty is a political firewall that limits the damage government can do to the individual.

There are many things in America worth conserving. But I am one of those conservatives who believes the most important of those things is liberty. Without liberty, without individual freedom, what is left to conserve isn't worth all that much.

There is only one kind of freedom and that's individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.

Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.

Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in society.

We believe, as our founders did, that 'the pursuit of happiness' depends upon individual liberty; and individual liberty requires limited government.

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.

Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.

The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.