“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

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

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Charles Sumner photo
Charles Sumner16
American abolitionist and politician 1811–1874

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

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“Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure…”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

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“To bargain freedom for security is the devil's bargain. Having made the bargain, one enjoys neither freedom nor security.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

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

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“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

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Edward Gibbon photo

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

This quotation appeared in an article by Margaret Thatcher, &quot;The Moral Foundations of Society&quot; ( Imprimis, March 1995 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-moral-foundations-of-society/), which was an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had given at Hillsdale College in November 1994. Here is the actual passage from Thatcher&#x27;s article:<br>&lt;blockquote&gt;[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians&#x27; dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br>The italicized passage above originated with Thatcher. In characterizing the Athenians in the article she cited Sir Edward Gibbon, but she seems to have been paraphrasing statements in &quot;Athens&#x27; Failure,&quot; a chapter of classicist Edith Hamilton&#x27;s book The Echo of Greece (1957), pp. 47–48 http://www.ergo-sum.net/books/Hamilton_EchoOfGreece_pp.47-48.jpg). <br class="br">Misattributed

Adam Smith photo

“The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter V, paragraph 82.

Ron Paul photo

“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Security and Liberty, April 23, 2007 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst042307.htm <br class="br">2000s, 2006-2009

Wendell Berry photo

“We cannot hope to be secure when our government has declared, by its readiness "to act alone," its willingness to be everybody's enemy.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), A Citizen's Response

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“In a globalized world, security can no longer be thought of as a zero-sum game involving states alone. Global security, instead, has five dimensions that include human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and, therefore, global security and the security of any state or culture cannot be achieved without good governance at all levels that guarantees security through justice for all individuals, states, and cultures.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

The Five Dimensions of Global Security: Proposal for a Multi-sum Security Principle, p. 15-16 (2007)

Andrei Sakharov photo

“Intellectual freedom of society will facilitate and smooth the way for this trend toward patience, flexibility, and a security from dogmatism, fear, and adventurism. All mankind, including its best-organized and most active forces, the working class and the intelligentsia, is interested in freedom and security.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), The Basis for Hope, Peaceful Competition
Context: Bertrand Russell once told a peace congress in Moscow that "the world will be saved from thermonuclear annihilation if the leaders of each of the two systems prefer complete victory of the other system to a thermonuclear war." (I am quoting from memory.) It seems to me that such a solution would be acceptable to the majority of people in any country, whether capitalist or socialist. I consider that the leaders of the capitalist and socialist systems by the very nature of things will gradually be forced to adopt the point of view of the majority of mankind.
Intellectual freedom of society will facilitate and smooth the way for this trend toward patience, flexibility, and a security from dogmatism, fear, and adventurism. All mankind, including its best-organized and most active forces, the working class and the intelligentsia, is interested in freedom and security.

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