“Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.”

— Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds — but with that word realized — with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
Context: Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a constitution — no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to pass its sentence.
In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds — but with that word realized — with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.

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Robert G. Ingersoll 439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

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Context: The essence of Vanderbilt is still learning, the essence of its outlook is still liberty, and liberty and learning will be and must be the touchstones of Vanderbilt University and of any free university in this country or the world. I say two touchstones, yet they are almost inseparable, inseparable if not indistinguishable, for liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.

“Almost without words, you’ve come to this world, which understands nothing without words.”

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Has venido a este mundo que no entiende nada sin palabras, casi sin palabras.
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“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
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Source: Phantastes

“By the word "liberty" they meant liberty for property, not liberty for persons.”

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Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 2, Protocols of Wealth, p. 33

“The soul can do without everything except the word of God, without which none at all of its wants are provided for.”

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Source: On Christian Liberty

“The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning.”

Steven Erikson book Reaper's Gale

Reaper's Gale (2007)
Context: For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?'
'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.'
'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp, 'that is precisely the point. That's their value — their ability to adapt -'
'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.

“The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

12 February 1851; compare the remark of John Wilkes about Samuel Johnson, "Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine" (20 March 1778), quoted in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) by James Boswell.
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)

“Now for the remedy. It is in one word, the only word that ever brought equity anywhere — LIBERTY!”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)
Context: Now for the remedy. It is in one word, the only word that ever brought equity anywhere — LIBERTY! Centuries upon centuries of liberty is the only thing that will cause the disintegration and decay of these pestiferous ideas. Liberty was all that calmed the bloodwaves of religious persecution! You cannot cure serfhood by any other substitution. Not for you to say "in this way shall the race love." Let the race alone.
Will there not be atrocious crimes? Certainly. He is a fool who says there will not be. But you can't stop them by committing the arch-crime and setting a block between the spokes of Progress-wheels. You will never get right until you start right.
As for the final outcome, it matters not one iota. I have my ideal, and it is very pure, and very sacred to me. But yours, equally sacred, may be different and we may both be wrong. But certain am I that with free contract, that form of sexual association will survive which is best adapted to time and place, thus producing the highest evolution of the type. Whether that shall be monogamy, variety, or promiscuity matters naught to us; it is the business of the future, to which we dare not dictate.

“Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Ash-Wednesday (1930)
Context: Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

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Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.”

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Robert G. Ingersoll 439

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