W. E. B. Du Bois on liberty

I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty and for Beauty to set the world right.

To have given each one of the million Negro free families a forty-acre freehold would have made a basis of real democracy in the United States that might easily have transformed the modern world.

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

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.

• War & Peace

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

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790