Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2019-02-14 Feb 14, 2019First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word 'liberty'. For each of them it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death nor maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or more individuals. It is the right of everyone to express their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings. It is everyone's right to associate with other individuals, either to discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they or their associates prefer, or even simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is more compatible with their inclinations or whims. Finally, it is everyone's right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government, either by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which the authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed. Now compare this liberty with that of the ancients. The latter consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; in forming alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgments; in examining the accounts, the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in accusing, condemning or absolving them. But if this was what the ancients called liberty, they admitted as compatible with this collective freedom the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community.~ Benjamin Constant Feb 13, 2019If the States were not left to leave the Union when their rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name.~ Daniel WebsterEach state enjoys sovereign power.~ Gouverneur Morris[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.~ H. L. Mencken Feb 12, 2019Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights -- and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.~ Ayn RandEvery effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism.~ Henry Steele CommagerWe have plenty of freedom in this country but not a great deal of independence.~ John W. Raper Feb 11, 2019We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, ... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.~ Declaration of IndependenceOver himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.~ John Stuart MillLiberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.~ Mikhail A. Bakunin Feb 8, 2019A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.~ C. S. LewisHere in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.~ Dwight D. EisenhowerThe Republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it ... This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.~ Elmer Davis Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print