The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal -- well-meaning but without understanding.

The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.

One's liberty should end when it becomes the curse of his neighbor.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.

It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

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.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself.

What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity -- for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

The history of liberty is the history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.

If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.

There can be no liberty that isn't earned.

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.