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Quotes about freedom

567 quotes from 261 people

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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
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790
- Liberty
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Winston Churchill1874–1965The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 19 (Prague, Albania, and the Polish Guarantee).
- War & Peace
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
?Unattributed
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid.
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855Either/Or Part I, Swenson Translation p. 19
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
The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936What I Saw In America
- America
- God
This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime.
Mike Tysonborn 1966
- America
- Slavery
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
Patrick Henry1736–1799Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (1775)
- Life & Death
- War & Peace
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527
- Guns
- War & Peace
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.
James Baldwin1924–1987
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969Dwight Eisenhower’s First Inaugural Address (1953)
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)