"It easy to know whence arises among peoples their affection for the free way of life, for experience shows that cities have never expanded either in dominion or in riches if they have not had freedom."
"The end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of Laws, where there is no Law, there is no Freedom."
"As good kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye."
"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains. There are some who may believe themselves masters of others, and are no less enslaved than they. How has this change come about?"
"For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all - freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters."
"It could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life."
"It is not to happiness alone, it is to self-development that our destiny calls us; and political liberty is the most powerful, the most effective means of self-development that heaven has given us."
"...a degenerate taste for equality which inspires the weak to bring the strong down to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in a state of slavery to inequality in a state of freedom."
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
"Once again, though we may insist on the rights of the individual, the social value of the corporation, or quasi-corporation, like the Trade Union, cannot be ignored."
"Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences... Liberty and responsibility are inseparable."
"The Platonic politician composes cities for beauties sake. But here I must protest. I do not believe that human lives may be made the means for satisfying an artist's desire for self-expression."
"If... the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict — and of tragedy — can never wholly be eliminated from human life."
"We feel intuitively that some liberties are more important than others. The restriction of the more important liberties is a greater restriction of liberty than that of the less important ones."
