“Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of freedom. Add intellectual integrity to the cost basis.”

"The Tallest Tale", p. 315
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of freedom. Add intellectual integrity to the cost basis." by Stephen Jay Gould?
Stephen Jay Gould photo
Stephen Jay Gould 274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Related quotes

Thomas Jefferson photo

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Often attributed to Jefferson, no original source for this has been found in his writings, and the earliest established source for similar remarks are those of John Philpot Curran in a speech upon the Right of Election (1790), published in Speeches on the late very interesting State trials (1808):
: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

*In a biography of Major General James Jackson published in 1809, author Thomas Charlton wrote that one of the obligations of biographers of famous people is

:"fastening upon the minds of the American people the belief, that 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance' " (in Thomas Usher Pulaski Charlton, The life of Major General James Jackson https://books.google.com.br/books?id=cEcSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false; F.Randolph, & Co., 1809, p. 85).
Misattributed
Variant: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few" (from a speech by Wendell Phillips at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society on January 28, 1852; quoted by John Morley, ed., The Fortnightly https://books.google.com.br/books?id=VfjRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=%E2%80%9CEternal+vigilance+is+the+price+of+liberty.%E2%80%9D+phillips+speech+anti-slavery&source=bl&ots=H2f8ckIw9o&sig=EukDrduBdK-oQSeY_Gf-VFQ6M54&hl=en&ei=SaxmTN-0H4P98AbioIi0BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CEternal%20vigilance%20is%20the%20price%20of%20liberty.%E2%80%9D%20phillips%20speech%20anti-slavery&f=false, Volume VIII, Chapman and Hall, 1870, p. 67).

George Santayana photo

“Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911), p. 58

George Marshall photo

“The price of peace is eternal vigilance.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

This has been attributed to Marshall, and he might have used the phrase, but earlier uses exist:
There is an imperialism that deserves all honor and respect — an imperialism of service in the discharge of great duties. But with too many it is the sense of domination and aggrandisement, the glorification of power. The price of peace is eternal vigilance.
Leonard H. Courtney as quoted in The Life Of Lord Courtney (I920) by G. P. Gooch
Courtney's statement however is probably derived from an earlier statement with several variants:
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
These have often been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but also Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and many others; Alfred Denning in The Road to Justice (1988) states that the phrase originated in a statement of Irish orator John Philpot Curran in 1790: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
Misattributed

M. S. Swaminathan photo

“Eternal vigilance is the price of food security.”

M. S. Swaminathan (1925) Indian scientist

[Chaturvedi, Pradeep, Women and Food Security: Role of Panchayats, http://books.google.com/books?id=IuKV5ak57asC&pg=PA46, 1 January 2002, Concept Publishing Company, 978-81-7022-873-8, 46–]

Wendell Phillips photo

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few….”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

Speech in Boston, Massachusetts (28 January 1852), Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1853), p. 13. The memorable and oft-quoted phrase, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," was not in quotation marks in the printed edition of this speech. The Home Book of Quotations, ed. Burton Stevenson, 9th ed., p. 1106 (1964), notes that "It has been said that Mr. Phillips was quoting Thomas Jefferson, but in a letter dated 14 April, 1879, Mr. Phillips wrote: '"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" has been attributed to Jefferson, but no one has yet found it in his works or elsewhere.' It has also been attributed to Patrick Henry."
1850s
Context: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

Jane Jacobs photo

“I was taught that the American's right to be a free individual, not at the mercy of the state, was hard-won and that its price was eternal vigilance, that I too would have to be vigilant.”

Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) American–Canadian journalist, author on urbanism and activist (1916-2006)

Political questionnaire response (1952)
Context: I was taught that the American's right to be a free individual, not at the mercy of the state, was hard-won and that its price was eternal vigilance, that I too would have to be vigilant. I was made to feel that it would be a disgrace to me, as an individual, if I should not value or should give up rights that were dearly bought. I am grateful for that upbringing.

Andrew Jackson photo

“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Farewell Address, (4 March 1837), recalling what, by then, had reached the status of a proverb.
1830s

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“The victory over cruelty is never final, but, like the maintenance of freedom, requires eternal vigilance.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

How—and How Not—to Love Mankind http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_3_urbanities-how_and_how_no.html (Summer 2001).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Theodor W. Adorno photo

“Both are torn halves of an integral freedom, to which however they do not add up.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

On high culture and popular culture, in a letter http://www.scribd.com/doc/11510904/Adorno-Letters-to-Walter-Benjamin to Walter Benjamin (18 March 1936)

Related topics