100 Best Liberty Quotes For The Pursuit Of Happiness
Gallery
The word liberty originates from the Latin word 'libertas'.
The Greek goddess Libertas represented this. Liberty means the ability to do as one pleases and to be free from authoritarian systems.
Liberty is often used as a synonym for freedom. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" is a common slogan raised during people's revolutionary movements.
It originated in France during the 17th-century French Revolutions and has been adopted by several other movements since. "All men have a natural right to life, liberty, and independence" is an important phrase in the United States Declaration Of Independence. It highlights the three unalienable rights of a man which must be protected by the governments.
Find some of the best liberty quotes, Founding Fathers quotes, John Locke quotes life liberty and property, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness quotes and Thomas Paine quotes give me liberty. For more related content take a look at John Jay quotes and patriotic quotes.
Famous Quotes About Liberty
Liberty is an absolutely essential part of society and enhances the sense of community. Here are some of the most famous freedom and liberty quotes.
1. “As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
― Abraham Lincoln.
2. “To but advance creaturely happiness aubaud:
Let us then affirm the Source of Liberty.”
― Samuel Adams.
3. “The true source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think...Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
― John Adams.
4. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “Sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty.”
― Victor Hugo.
6. “True liberty consists exactly in self-determination in the direction of holiness. Man is never more free than when he moves consciously in the direction of God.”
― Louis Berkhof.
7. “We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln.
8. “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell.
9. “I number a warm and uniform attachment to liberty, and to the constitution. The enemies of liberty are artful and insidious.”
― James Wilson.
10. “The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their consciences, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”
― George Washington.
11. “I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document.”
― Frederick Douglass.
12. “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
― George Bernard Shaw.
13. “The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”
― Woodrow Wilson.
14. “I value liberty above all else. Without liberty, no other value can be realized.”
― Graeme Rodaughan.
15. “Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”
― Theodore Roosevelt.
16. “There is no true liberty except the liberty of the happy who cleave to the eternal law.”
― Saint Augustine.
17. “Liberty means ability not to violate the law of God. License means personal insistence on doing what I like.”
― Oswald Chambers.
18. “Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.”
― Alexander Hamilton.
19. “I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.”
― Alexander Hamilton.
20. “Liberty is the only thing you can't have unless you give it to others.”
― William Allen White.
21. “For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.”
― Thomas Paine.
Best Quotes On Liberty
These best liberty quotes talk about the importance of liberty in the formation and development of a country.
22. “Who speaks of liberty while the human mind is in chains?”
― Francis Wright.
23. “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau.
24. “Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.”
― Henry Adams.
25. “People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman.
26. “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
― Kahlil Gibran.
27. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
― Barry Goldwater.
28. “When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.”
― Oscar Wilde.
29. “It is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist."
— J. Gresham Machen.
30. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
― John F. Kennedy.
31. “Social order is better preserved by liberty than by restraint.”
― William E. Channing.
32. “A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.”
― Joseph Addison.
33. “Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
― John Locke.
34. “Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
― Ayn Rand.
Freedom Quotes
Some of the most famous quotes on freedom.
35. “For with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
― Nelson Mandela.
36. “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
― Voltaire.
37. “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
― Mahatma Gandhi.
38. “The freedom to be yourself is a gift only you can give yourself but once you do, no one can take it away.”
― Doe Zantamata.
39. “The moment we let go is the moment we find freedom.”
― Rebekah Stephenson.
40. “Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.”
― Wayne Dyer.
41. “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom assumes responsibility and most people are afraid of that.”
― Sigmund Freud.
42. “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
― Albert Einstein.
43. “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
― Winston Churchill.
44. “The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.”
― Milton Friedman.
45. “Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.”
― Thomas Sowell.
46. “Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche.
47. “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
― William Faulkner.
48. “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt.
49. “Once freedom lights its beacon in a man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre.
50. “Until we are all free, we are none of us free. ”
― Emma Lazarus.
51. “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
— Søren Kierkegaard.
52. “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
— Jim Morrison.
53. “When we let go and let God, Freedom, and peace are revealed.”
― Criss Tareyton.
54. “If you want to know the value of freedom, ask people who only dream of having it.”
― Frank Sonnenberg.
55. “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.”
― Albert Camus.
Independence Quotes
The struggle for independence is one of the most major aspects of all free countries. Here are some of the best quotes about independence.
56. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
― Nelson Mandela.
57. “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
― Thomas Paine.
58. “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
― Thomas Paine.
59. “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte.
60. “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln.
61. “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
― Patrick Henry.
62. “To usurp dominion over a people in their own despite, or to grasp at a more extensive power than they are willing to intrust, is to violate that law of nature which gives every man a right to his personal liberty.”
― Alexander Hamilton.
63. “So long as men die, liberty will never perish.”
― Charlie Chaplin.
64. “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
― Patrick Henry.
65. “This, then, is freedom in the external life of man-that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows.”
― Ludwig von Mises.
66. “Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means.”
― Louis D. Brandeis.
67. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
― John F. Kennedy.
Thomas Jefferson Liberty Quotes
Check out the best quotes by Thomas Jefferson who was the principal author of 'The Declaration of Independence'.
68. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
69. “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
70. “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
71. “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
72. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
73. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
74. “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
75. “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
76. “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
77. “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
― Thomas Jefferson.
Benjamin Franklin Quotes On Liberty
Learn more about freedom with these great quotes from Benjamin Franklin.
78. “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”
― Benjamin Franklin.
79. “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
― Benjamin Franklin.
80. “God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth.”
― Benjamin Franklin.
81. “Where liberty is, there is my country.”
― Benjamin Franklin.
82. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin.
Religious Liberty Quotes
Quotes about the freedom to practice religion and how other's religious beliefs demands respect.
83. “The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your choosing simply because you're out-voted.”
― Ira Glasser.
84. “Religious liberty is the salt and light that has made us the great nation we are in a whole number of ways.”
― Eric Metaxas.
85. “The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.”
― Billy Graham.
86. “Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”
― Ronald Reagan.
87. “The Americans who framed our Constitution felt that without freedom of religion no other freedom counted.”
― Henry Steele Commager.
Statue Of Liberty Quotes
Here are some of the best Lady Liberty quotes.
88. “Lady Liberty is not just a statue, she is a reflection of the soul of America.”
― Abhijit Naskar.
89. “I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.”
― Charles B. Rangel.
90. “The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and yelling, ‘You want a piece of me?’ ”
― Robin Williams.
91. “Many of America’s and New York’s sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.”
― Michael Bloomberg.
92. “For all her scale and immensity, there’s something soft about the Statue of Liberty, something tender about her.”
― Derek Walcott.
93. “I've always had a strong feeling for the Statue of Liberty, because it became the statue of my personal liberty.”
― David Antin.
John Stuart Mill Quotes On Liberty
Here are some of the best quotes from John Stuart Mill's book 'On Liberty'.
94. “The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
― John Stuart Mill.
95. “No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.”
― John Stuart Mill.
96. “Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.”
― John Stuart Mill.
97. “We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.”
― John Stuart Mill.
98. “The magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first.”
― John Stuart Mill.
99. “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of the opinion is, that it is robbing the human race.”
― John Stuart Mill.
100. “Yet, desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints.”
― John Stuart Mill.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for liberty quotes, then why not take a look at John Hancock quotes, or Paul Revere quotes.
second image credit: Ritu Manoj Jethani / Shutterstock.com
We Want Your Photos!
More for You
See All
Bachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
Rajnandini RoychoudhuryBachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
With a Master of Arts in English, Rajnandini has pursued her passion for the arts and has become an experienced content writer. She has worked with companies such as Writer's Zone and has had her writing skills recognized by publications such as The Telegraph. Rajnandini is also trilingual and enjoys various hobbies such as music, movies, travel, philanthropy, writing her blog, and reading classic British literature.
Disclaimer
1) Kidadl is independent and to make our service free to you the reader we are supported by advertising. We hope you love our recommendations for products and services! What we suggest is selected independently by the Kidadl team. If you purchase using the Buy Now button we may earn a small commission. This does not influence our choices. Prices are correct and items are available at the time the article was published but we cannot guarantee that on the time of reading. Please note that Kidadl is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. We also link to other websites, but are not responsible for their content.
2) At Kidadl, we strive to recommend the very best activities and events. We will always aim to give you accurate information at the date of publication - however, information does change, so it’s important you do your own research, double-check and make the decision that is right for your family. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Kidadl cannot accept liability for the execution of these ideas, and parental supervision is advised at all times, as safety is paramount. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong.
3) Because we are an educational resource, we have quotes and facts about a range of historical and modern figures. We do not endorse the actions of or rhetoric of all the people included in these collections, but we think they are important for growing minds to learn about under the guidance of parents or guardians.
