Quotes on Liberty / Freedom

Nov. 21, 1933 – In a letter to Col. Edward M. House, President Franklin Roosevelt writes: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” ...

The Boston based "The Youth's Companion" magazine published a few words for students to repeat on Columbus Day that year. Written by Francis Bellamy, the circulation manager and native of Rome, New York, and reprinted on thousands of leaflets, was sent out to public schools across the country. On October 12, 1892, the quadricentennial of Columbus' arrival, more than 12 million children recited the Pledge of Allegiance, thus beginning a required school-day ritual. At the first National Flag Conference in Washington D.C., on June 14, 1923, a change was made. For clarity, the words "the Flag of the United ...

Lord Acton wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1881: “All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” His name’s way cooler than yours. John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, more famous simply as Lord Acton. More to the point, he said something way more influential than anything you or I are likely to say. It’s the one thing most people know. Usually misquoted, but still. Why did he say that and to whom? The answer may surprise you. To the Lord Bishop of London The phrase comes from his first letter to the Anglican bishop of London, Mandell ...

On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech." There are five known copies of the speech in Lincoln's handwriting, each with a slightly different text, and named ...

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables (Wikipedia). One of Soren Kierkegaard's most important writings, Works of Love is a profound examination of the human heart, in which the great philosopher conducts the reader into the inmost secrets of Love. "Deep within every man," Kierkegaard writes, "there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by ...

"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger." Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837 ...

The idea that states have a constitutional right to nullify or veto acts of Congress gained ground with many Americans in the 1820s. One of the most influential and articulate defenses of the doctrine of nullification came from  John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina and Andrew Jackson’s Vice President. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Address set the stage for South Carolina’s nullification of the federal tariffs the following year. President Jackson publicly refuted Calhoun’s arguments and brought a swift end to South Carolina’s threats of secession. Calhoun’s theory of nullification, however, became fact in the minds of many Americans and contributed to the ...

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” ― Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 10: 1 May 1816 to 18 January 1817 ...

James Madison (1751-1836) helped frame the Bill of Rights, member of the Continental Congress and rapporteur at the Constitutional Convention in 1776 and 4th President of the United States: In an address to the Virginia Convention he said: I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." A major new biography of the fourth president of the United States by New York Times bestselling author Lynne Cheney Lin-Manuel Miranda's play "Hamilton" has reignited interest in the founding fathers; it ...

In a letter from Washington to Lafayette on 7 Feb. 1788: “It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different states (which states you know are also different from each other in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices) should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well-founded objections.” - quoted in Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1966, p. xvii. It was a miracle. Consider the setting. The thirteen colonies and three and one-half million Americans who had won independence from the ...