Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

True liberal government is founded on the emancipation of men.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

Because of my parents‘ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

I’m glad I can’t vote.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

The highly functional infrastructure that surrounds us, particularly in the West, is a gift from our ancestors: the comparatively uncorrupt political and economic systems, the technology, the wealth, the lifespan, the freedom, the luxury, and the opportunity.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.

A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

White people just don’t want their slaves to be free. That’s the whole thing.

I am the freest author in the world.

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear – and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

If… many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve – not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country – those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy – the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.