“Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty.”
Address at the National Archives dedicating a shrine for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (15 December 1952) https://trumanlibrary.org/calendar/viewpapers.php?pid=2102
Context: Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
All freedom-loving nations, not the United States alone, are facing a stern challenge from the Communist tyranny. In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.
Invasion and conquest by Communist armies would be a horror beyond our capacity to imagine. But invasion and conquest by Communist ideas of right and wrong would be just as bad.
For us to embrace the methods and morals of communism in order to defeat Communist aggression would be a moral disaster worse than any physical catastrophe. If that should come to pass, then the Constitution and the Declaration would be utterly dead and what we are doing today would be the gloomiest burial in the history of the world.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Harry Truman 119
American politician, 33rd president of the United States (i… 1884–1972Related quotes

Military chaplains on front lines of religious freedom battle https://web.archive.org/web/20120801020548/http://www.catholicanchor.org/wordpress/archives/7463 (July 3, 2012)

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

Michael Howard (July 25, 2005) "Freedom at heart of new Iraq, says Talabani : Suicide bomb kills 40 as president calls for calm", The Guardian.

“Environmentalism is a dangerous ideology endangering human freedom.”
(2007) HARDtalk with Vaclav Klaus, BBC News, November 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEQmJBINYj4,

Communication to the American Crime Study Commission (May 19, 1929)

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

Declaration of INTERdependence (1945)