
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
Notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)
1770s
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John Adams 202
2nd President of the United States 1735–1826Related quotes


Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 170

“The two greatest things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency.”
Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865
Context: The two greatest things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency. We have had liberty enough - too much perhaps in some respects - but at all events, liberty to our hearts content.

The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

An essay on the slavery and commerce of the human species, particularly the African, translated from a Latin Dissertation, p. 54 (1788) https://books.google.com/books?id=pBOe7105MhMC&pg=PA54

"Why Liberty?”, in the Chicago Tribune (30 January 1927)
1920s

Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17
Context: Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false.
If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered — upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free — the truth and its expression!