Echoes

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

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

No man is free who is not master of himself.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

Liberty is never out of bounds or off limits; it spreads wherever it can capture the imagination of men.

I rebel — therefore we exist.

I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! “I shall die,” you say; you mean to say “I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death.”

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

He who is brave is free.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's; I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

What labels me, negates me.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.