We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

Economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue the slaves of prejudice? What is it to be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself … Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

Economic freedom has no security without political freedom, and political freedom can find its security only in economic freedom.

I assume that our colleagues from both the United States and the European Union will proceed from current humanitarian law and ensure political freedoms and rights of all people, including those who are living in the territory of Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.

Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible.

It is important that social, political, and religious freedoms grow in China. A society which recognizes religious freedom is a society which will recognize political freedom as well.

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or instrument of government – but the reverse… If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom.

Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised.

Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.

If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God‘s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.

Political freedom is, or ought to be, the best guaranty for the safety and continuance of spiritual, mental, and civil freedom. It is the combination of numbers to secure the liberty to each one.

Thought … is still possible, and no doubt actual, wherever men live under the conditions of political freedom. Unfortunately … no other human capacity is so vulnerable, and it is in fact far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.

Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world.

Freedom cannot be bestowed – it must be achieved.

It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women should ignore the issue of the right of all women to political freedom.

Charlie Hebdo: Satire was the father of true political freedom, born in the 18th century; the scourge of bigots and tyrants. Sing its praises.

For us democracy is a question of human dignity. And human dignity is political freedom.

We’re quite lucky that we’ve got political freedoms. We should be using them.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery.

Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom realty.

Because Iranians have had to fight so long and painfully for political freedom, they have a deep appreciation for its value – perhaps deeper than many in the West who take their electoral rights for granted.

Political freedom is a political reading of the Bible.

Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

Since Castro took power, the Cuban people have been denied basic human freedoms. No freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no political freedom. And the regime uses brutality and violence to suppress these freedoms and impose its will.

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.

I understand regicide as a means of obtaining vengeance for the ruin of our lives, but regicide as a means of obtaining political freedom I could never understand.

Naturally the common people don’t want war. . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. . .

How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.

Like wealth, or health, political freedom may simply be something that people don’t value if they’ve always had it.

Political freedom is to be cherished indeed. But there is no political freedom that is not indissolubly bound to the inner personal freedom of the individuals who make up that nation: no liberty of a nation of conformists, no free nation made up of robots.

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.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One’s right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote; they depend on no elections.

If you do not force political freedom, economic freedom will be stymied sooner or later.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Recover the source of all strength in yourself, and all else will be added to you … political freedom, the mastery of human thought, the hegemony of the world.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

The Bible is the only force known to history that has freed enitre nations from corruption while simultaneously giving them political freedom.

The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama has argued that liberal democracies, with their political freedom and economic success, have three important pillars: a strong government, the rule of law, and democratic accountability. I would add a fourth: free markets.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders…tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions-as
in moral truth and accountability they are.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.