FREEDOM & LIBERTY
DEFINED
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep.
BOVARD, JAMES, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, St. Martin's Press, 1994
[T]he real test of the real existence of Individual Liberty in any political and governmental system is whether that system presents a fairly well-defined real of Individual Liberty, of individual exemption from governmental power, and provides the means for the protection of that realm, as well against encroachment by the Government as against encroachment from every other quarter.
BURGESS, JOHN WILLIAM, The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty (1915)
Liberty...consists in this, that every Man, while he respects the persons of others, and allows them quietly to enjoy the produce of their industry, be certain himself likewise to enjoy the produce of his own industry; and that his person be also secure.
DE LOLME, J.L., The Constitution of England, Book II, Chapter V, 1771
[I]t is the right of canvassing without fear [of] the conduct of those who are placed at their head, which constitutes a free Nation.
DE LOLME, J.L., The Constitution of England, Book II, Chapter XVII, 1771
Dr. G. P. Gooch distinguish four leading elements which make up a full definition of the rights that citizens of a free country ought to possess and enjoy. First...a wide popular franchise...Secondly...civil or legal liberty...defined as a system under which all citizens are equal before the law, and the laws are interpreted by judges independent of the executive...[T]hird...is religious liberty - the liberty of conscience...Fourthly...freedom of the Press and freedom of discussion...To these four liberties I would add economic liberty, which includes freedom of trade.
HIRST, FRANCIS W., Liberty and Tyranny
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
HOFFER, ERIC, The Passionate State of Mind
[L]iberty applied to political man practically means, in the man, protection or checks against undue interference, whether this be from individuals, from masses, or from government. The highest amount of liberty comes to signify the safest guarantees of undisturbed legitimate action, and the most efficient checks against undue interference.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter III
We advance, then, a step farther in practically considering civil liberty, and find that it chiefly consists in guarantees (and corresponding checks) of those rights which experience has proved to be most exposed to interference, and which men hold dearest and most important.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter III
The trial for treason is a gauge of liberty. Tell us how they try people for treason, and we will tell you whether they are free.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter VIII
Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others.
LOCKE, JOHN, Two Treatises of Government, Book II, Chapter V
Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.
Liberty is power cut into fragments.
MAINE, SIR HENRY SUMNER, The Prospects of Popular Government
Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop. If one assigns to the government the task of making truth prevail in the advertising of perfumes and tooth paste, one cannot contest it the right to look after truth in the more important matters of religion, philosophy, and social ideology.
MISES, LUDWIG VON, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, The Market
Liberty is the right to do everything which the laws allow.
MONTESQUIEU, De l'Espirit des Lois
Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights——the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery——hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
O’ROURKE, P.J., The Liberty Manifesto
Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.
REAGAN, RONALD, Address at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988
[Liberty is] the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labour, art, and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The fruits of a man’s honest industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal equity, as is his title to use them in the manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above limitations, every man is sole lord and arbiter of his own private actions and property.
TRENCHARD, JOHN and GORDON, THOMAS, Cato’s Letters, quoted in ROTHBARD, MURRAY, Conceived in Liberty, Vol. II, The Growth of Libertarian Thought
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.