“This is, above all, the age of liberty.”
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2003, Address to the National Endowment for Democracy (November 2003)
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
— John Milton, book Areopagitica
Source: Areopagitica
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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John Milton190
English epic poet 1608–1674Related quotes
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States
1770s, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (1775)
Context: It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas
Five Essays on Liberty (2002), Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician
Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester William Warburton (October 1762), quoted in W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1838), p. 188
1760s
“Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.”
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Context: The Constitution and laws of our country are adopted and enacted through the direct action of the people, or through their duly chosen representatives. They reflect the enlightened conscience of our country. They ought always to speak with the true and conscientious voice of the people. Such voice has from time immemorial had the authority of divine sanction. In their great fundamentals they do not change. As new light arrives they may be altered in their details, but they represent the best that we know at any given time. To support the Constitution, to observe the laws, is to be true to our own higher nature. That is the path, and the only path, towards liberty. To resist them and violate them is to become enemies to ourselves and instruments of our own destruction. That is the path towards servitude. Obedience is not for the protection of someone else, but for the protection of ourselves. It needs to be remembered that it has to be secured not through the action of others, but through our own actions. Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian
Private notes, quoted in G. E. Fasnacht, Acton's Political Philosophy. An Analysis (1952), p. 19, n. 7
Undated
Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge
Other writings, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)