Charlotte Brontë on freedom

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

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

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• Liberty
• War & Peace

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

John Philpot Curran1750–1817Often credited to Thomas Jefferson

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790This was first used by Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in its “Reply to the Governor” (November 11, 1755) Reply to the Governor

• Liberty