Individual Freedom Quotes

Individual freedom and individual equality cannot co-exist. I dare say no one since Thomas Jefferson has really believed it.

Our lives are bound by physical limits, familial ties, political conditions, and geographical restrictions. Individual freedom takes us beyond them all.

America is fundamentally conservative. People want a strong national defense. They want low taxes. They want individual freedoms. There's no doubt that the Republican party has got to rebuild. We've got to restructure. We've got to let new leaders come to the fore. But at the end of the day, those fundamental core principles are the ones that have made the nation great, not just the party affecting them.

The demand for individual freedom leads us to different realms, and it enables us to participate in social events.

The European community of values is unique: It combines democracy with the market economy, individual freedoms with social justice. How can we expect the U.S. or China to defend these values, this one-of-a-kind European balancing act that has developed over the course of decades?

I really didn't know much about the Libertarians. I knew they were for less government and more individual freedom. I liked that.

I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

Liberty (individual freedom) is the prize, responsibility the price.

It became inescapable that as conservatives were wrong about people of color, they were also wrong about women. They were wrong about gay people. The only individual freedoms they seemed to get exercised about were the freedom to make a profit and the freedom to own a gun.

Individual freedom is a Jewish idea, but it's one of the functions of Christianity to make this idea universal.

Silicon Valley tends to believe in the individual who creates a small group and does something big. Democracy is always frustrating, but it creates a society that, for example, allows us to invest in each other's kids, to have public education, to have both a greater society and individual freedom for creating businesses.

In short, individual freedom of speech leads to a stronger society. But knowing that principle is not enough. You have to know how to put it to use on the Net.

I represent what I think is a traditional Republican... a limited government, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, individual freedom and liberty.

The fact the enemies of God must face is that modern civilization has conquered the world, but in doing so has lost its soul. And in losing its soul it will lose the very world it gained. Even our own so-called Liberal culture in these United States which has tried to avoid complete secularization by leaving little zones of individual freedom is in danger of forgetting that these zones were preserved only because religion was in their soul. And as religion fades so will freedom, for only where the spirit of God is, is there liberty.

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.

I believe the role that people like myself have played in the transformation of public opinion has been by persistently presenting a different point of view, a point of view which stresses the importance of private markets, of individual freedom, and the distorting effect of governmental policy.

Any grand new dictionary ought itself to be a democratic product, a book that demonstrated the primacy of individual freedoms, of the notion that one could use words freely, as one liked, without hard and fast rules of lexical conduct.

Not so long ago people believed in ideologies, systems, and institutions to save all societies. Today, they have given up such hopes and have returned to relying on the individual, on individual freedom, individual initiative, individual creativity.

Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.

There are many things in America worth conserving. But I am one of those conservatives who believes the most important of those things is liberty. Without liberty, without individual freedom, what is left to conserve isn't worth all that much.

We believe firmly that Communism internally and externally can and must be fought without resort to the Communist tactics of the suppression of all individual freedom.

The term "Socialism" becomes a common label for the various theories of attack upon the principle of property, the various policies of communal control at the expense of the family and individual freedom.

Freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away. Individual freedom demands individual responsibility.

Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality.

While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

In the midst of all these innumerable forms of a common protest and universal ill-ease there has grown up one definite body of doctrine whose adherents are called Communists and who desired the total subversion of what had been, hitherto unquestioned among civilized European men, the general doctrines of property and individual freedom.

I think it's really crucial to leave our American context, not only for a sense of individual freedom, but also to make links to international struggles for civil rights.

How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country.

I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.

Creation is too grand, complex, and mysterious to be captured in a narrow creed. That is why we cherish individual freedom of belief.

The more laws that governments pass, the less individual freedom there is. Any student of history will tell you that. Totalitarian countries ban pretty much everything.

We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government--a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance.

China has to go along with world trends. That's democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom...

I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.

The love of individual freedom has stood in the way of the appreciation of social obligations.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order --or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.

Is the American tradition of self-reliance disappearing? That's a painful question for conservatives to ponder. After all, we're dedicated to reducing the role of government and promoting individual freedom and opportunity. But the facts, while sad, are clear: More Americans today depend more heavily on government than ever before.

I am a Republican because I believe in the constitution, strength in national defense, limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility as the concrete foundation for American government. They reinforce the resolve that the United States is the greatest country in the world and we can all be eternally grateful to our founding fathers for the beautiful legacy they left us today.

Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty, and ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society.

To reverse the trend and reduce the role of government in our lives, and thus alleviate the government deficit and inflation pressures, is a giant educational task. The social and economic ideas that gave birth to the transfer system must be discredited and replaced with old values of individual independence and self-reliance. The social philosophy of individual freedom and unhampered private property must again be our guiding light.

As precious as life itself is our heritage of individual freedom, for man's free agency is a God-given gift.

Democracy is not an easy form of government, because it is never final; it is a living, changing organism, with a continuous shifting and adjusting of balance between individual freedom and general order.

Individual freedom and drug laws contradict each other. In a genuinely free society, people are free to ingest whatever they want to ingest, no matter how harmful or destructive. What people ingest is none of the government's business. If drug users or drug addicts wish to get help, a free society provides the means to do so.

The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.

In Britain the power of authority was weakened. There was much more individual freedom and there was great academic freedom.

When we speak of peace, we should not mean just the absence of war. True peace rests on the pillars of individual freedom, human rights, national self-determination, and respect for the rule of law.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.