“Freedom in not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.”

— Henry Steele Commager

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), pp. vii - viii

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Henry Steele Commager 27

American historian 1902–1998

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 16 : Security, the One-Way Ticket to Slavery, p. 174

“Without security, civilization is cramped and dwarfed. Without security, there can be no freedom. Nor shall I say too much, when I declare that security, guarded of course by its offspring, freedom, is the true end and aim of government.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

The Crime Against Kansas speech (May 19-20, 1856)

“If and when the whole world is secure, we have won a right to explore space, and the oceans. Until we have demonstrated that we can establish a productive and secure earth society, we do not belong anywhere else, nor (I suspect) would we be welcome elsewhere.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 14.2

“Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both, and we can if we try, we have failed.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

On the Iraq War, in [Roberts, Joel, Senate Resoundingly Renews Patriot Act, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-resoundingly-renews-patriot-act/, 20 August 2018, CBS News, February 28, 2006]
2006

“Prosperity and security are ours in heaven. We will live in peace and safety.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 125

“We shall not correct admitted and grave defects if we hesitate to recognize them. We must be frank with ourselves. We ought to be our own harshest critics. We can afford to be, for in spite of everything we still have a balance of prosperity, of general welfare, of secure freedom, and of righteous purpose, that gives us assurance of leadership among the nations.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

“We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.”

Karl Popper book The Open Society and Its Enemies

Vol. 2, Ch. 21 "An Evaluation of the Prophecy"
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

“No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other’s security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)
Context: No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other’s security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.
— And, I would add that this responsibility is not simply a matter of States being ready to come to each other’s aid when attacked — important though that is. It also includes our shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity — a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations at last year’s UN world summit. That means that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as a shield by Governments intent on massacring their own people, or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when heinous crimes are committed.

“We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Speech at the opening ceremony of the State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi (1 July 1948)
Context: We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind.

“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.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 115

“Freedom in not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.”

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Henry Steele Commager 27

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