Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [21-40] of 74 Restraint quotesRestraint QuotesRestraint Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint.~ Thomas I. Emerson Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.~ Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and, that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.~ Alexander Hamilton Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.~ Friedrich August von Hayek I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.~ Friedrich August von Hayek The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs.~ Friedrich August von Hayek If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor.~ George Stillman Hillard Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.~ Eric Hoffer The lesson that Americans today have forgotten or never learned -- the lesson which our ancestors tried so hard to teach -- is that the greatest threat to our lives, liberty, property, and security is not some foreign government, as our rulers so often tell us. The greatest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with our own government!.~ Jacob G. Hornberger Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, 'the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed.'~ Justice Charles Evans Hughes A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.~ William Ralph Inge I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.~ Thomas Jefferson The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.~ Thomas Jefferson But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.~ Thomas Jefferson When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.~ Thomas Jefferson Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.~ Walter Lippmann [F]or nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the high-way, when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket: this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force, if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force, which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it: and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass: the loss was irreparable; which to prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds that way.~ John Locke Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print