Quotes about Liberty
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
— Thomas Jefferson
And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
— Thomas Jefferson
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
— Thomas Jefferson
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
— Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
— Thomas Jefferson
God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.
— Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
— Thomas Jefferson
We 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 ar
— Thomas Jefferson
Political Liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. The exercise of the natural rights of every [human], has no other limits than those which are necessary to secure to every other [human] the free exercise of the same rights.
— Thomas Paine
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
— Thomas Paine
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
— Thomas Paine
An 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 Paine