“Liberty of the people is not my liberty!”

Vol. II; CLXXVIII
Lacon (1820)

6th October 2005, during a discussion on Catalan and Spanish nationalism and the inclusion of the term nation-state in the Statute of Catalonia. <br class="br">As President, 2005 <br class="br">Source: Libertad Digital: Zapatero, la patria-libertad, el españolismo y la &quot;fórmula&quot; para la nación catalana http://www.libertaddigital.com/index.php?action=desanoti&amp;cpn=1276262390 (Spanish)

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

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Context: The Constitution and laws of our country are adopted and enacted through the direct action of the people, or through their duly chosen representatives. They reflect the enlightened conscience of our country. They ought always to speak with the true and conscientious voice of the people. Such voice has from time immemorial had the authority of divine sanction. In their great fundamentals they do not change. As new light arrives they may be altered in their details, but they represent the best that we know at any given time. To support the Constitution, to observe the laws, is to be true to our own higher nature. That is the path, and the only path, towards liberty. To resist them and violate them is to become enemies to ourselves and instruments of our own destruction. That is the path towards servitude. Obedience is not for the protection of someone else, but for the protection of ourselves. It needs to be remembered that it has to be secured not through the action of others, but through our own actions. Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

As quoted in "The Economist" (8 October 2011), p. 67

This instant about two thousand liberty boys are swearing and swaggering by with large sticks
(from vol 2, letter 67: 6 Jun 1780, to J___ S___ esq).

In Ladies Home Journal, May 1958

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
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.