Benjamin Franklin on liberty

A penny saved is a penny earned.

For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail.

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

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

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Aristotle384–322 BCPolitics, book IV, 1291.b34

• Democracy
• Government

We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy1917–1963John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961)