“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”
Thomas Jefferson
RightsRespect
Freedom Quotes
200 FAMOUS QUOTES · FREEDOM
Freedom Quotes
Read the best freedom quotes from Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Swami Vivekananda, Shakespeare, the Bible and more, with timeless words on liberty and independence.
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
Thomas Jefferson
GovernmentVigilance
“Almighty God hath created the mind free.”
Thomas Jefferson
Freedom Of ThoughtReligious Freedom
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
Benjamin Franklin
TyrannyResistance
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.”
John Adams
RightsFaith
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature.”
Alexander Hamilton
Human RightsNatural Law
“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”
James Madison
EducationKnowledge
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.”
Thomas Paine
GovernmentSociety
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”
Patrick Henry
VigilanceProtecting Freedom
“Liberty, let others despair of you - I never despair of you.”
Walt Whitman
HopePoetry
“Here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
RevolutionHistory
“As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
Julia Ward Howe
SacrificeAbolition
“O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Francis Scott Key
PatriotismAmerica
“My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.”
Samuel Francis Smith
PatriotismAmerica
“America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”
Katharine Lee Bates
PatriotismBrotherhood
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?”
Henry David Thoreau
ConscienceCivil Disobedience
“Obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Self DisciplineLaw
“There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
Montesquieu
TyrannyJustice
“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.”
John Stuart Mill
ResponsibilityRespect
“Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.”
Edmund Burke
BalanceOrder
“Every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself.”
John Locke
Individual RightsSelf Ownership
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
William Pitt the Younger
TyrannyExcuses
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton
PowerCorruption
“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.”
Lord Acton
PoliticsLiberty
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
MoralityFaith