Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2018-08-08 Aug 8, 2018The persecuting spirit has its origin morally in the disposition of man to domineer over his fellow creatures; intellectually, in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct.~ John FiskeIt is not the disease, but the physician; it is the pernicious hand of government alone which can reduce a whole people to despair.~ JuniusAll truth is safe, and nothing else is safe; and he who keeps back the truth or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward, or a criminal, or both.~ Max Muller Aug 7, 2018Freedom degenerates unless it has to struggle in its own defence.~ Lord ActonFreedom is a new religion, the religion of our time.~ Heinrich HeineI wish men to be free, as much from mobs as kings,—from you as me.~ Lord Byron Aug 6, 2018The history of civilized man is the history of the incessant conflict between liberty and authority. Each victory for liberty marked a new step in the world's progress; so we can measure the advance of civilization by the amount of freedom acquired by human institutions.~ Charles T. SpradingThe first great struggle for liberty was in the realm of thought. The libertarians reasoned that freedom of thought would be good for mankind; it would promote knowledge, and increased knowledge would advance civilization. But the authoritarians protested that freedom of thought would be dangerous, that people would think wrong, that a few were divinely appointed to think for the people.~ Charles T. SpradingAnd here is the difference between the Libertarians and the Authoritarians: the latter have no confidence in liberty; they believe in compelling people to be good, assuming that people are totally depraved; the former believe in letting people be good, and maintain that humanity grows better and better as it gains more and more liberty. If Libertarians were merely to ask that liberty be tried in any one of the other fields of human expression they would meet the same opposition as their pioneer predecessors; but such is their confidence in the advantages of liberty that they demand, not that it be tried in one more instance only, but that it be universally adopted.~ Charles T. Sprading Aug 3, 2018Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.~ BuddhaAn avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.~ Thomas PaineI detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.~ Voltaire Aug 2, 2018Every attempt to gag the free expression of thought is an unsocial act against society. That is why judges and juries who try to enforce such laws make themselves ridiculous.~ Jay FoxWays may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home.~ Justice Louis D. BrandeisIf there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.~ Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print