liberty

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate bondage, and the meanest and most servile preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principle put themselves forward as the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where all things are out of their natural connections, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a contempt of law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.

There are lots of different ideas, lots of different opinions about the First Amendment Defense Act and what it should be. There were a lot of different forms of it while I was on the Hill. But I would say that I agree that the decision on gay marriage does mean that we need to take some steps to defend religious liberty.

An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.

I have no sympathy for debunking human achievements that, in the end, gave ordinary people liberty.

While Democrats fussed with the details of health care reforms, conservatives spent months telling the nation that the real issue is freedom, that what's on the line is American liberty itself.

I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

Toleration and liberty are the foundations of a great republic.

Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.

Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.

We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty; our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of everything. That country is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.

It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own.

I__ an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation.