A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to allow his vision wherever it takes him.

To a greater force, and to a better nature, you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most impressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be saturated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

Freedom of information is a fundamental human right...for a nation that is afraid to let its people to judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Freedom is to be free from restraint and violence from others.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you straight is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution... that can only weaken the principle of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection Clause.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

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

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Understanding a question is half an answer.

Everything you say should be true but not everything true should be said.

Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonorably is pardonable.

Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words

Listen with ears of tolerance, see through the eyes of compassion, speak with language of love.

Great wisdom is generous, petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech in cantankerous.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason.