Democracy & Freedom quotes for UPSC & State PCS

Politics is a game of compromise.

The seed of revolution is repression.

There shall be no slavery of the mind.

Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.

Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Democracy is a garden that has to be tended.

The government in Washington belongs to you.

Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!

Freedom under law is like the air we breathe.

Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

When people are free to choose, they choose freedom.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.

One cannot prevent people from thinking what they please.

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

In dictatorships there is no... self-correcting mechanism.

Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.

It is only as we govern ourselves that we are well-governed.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

The suppression of liberty is always likely to be irrational.

What is the government? nothing, unless supported by opinion.

Man is created free, and is free, Though he be born in chains.

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Partial freedom seems to me the most invidious form of slavery.

Democracy is a system where people are counted but not weighed.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the state.

The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs.

For the unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.

It is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in their ability to reason.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

If one is going to err, one should err on the side of liberty and freedom.

There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery.

Freedom and liberty lose out by default because good people are not vigilant.

Under democracy individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.

If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Of freedom and of life he only is deserving Who every day must conquer them anew.

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul except to walk free and own no superior?

The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.

The history of free men is never really written by chance-but by choice-their choice.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.

Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.

You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves.

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.

It is not necessary to prohibit or encourage oddities of conduct which are not harmful.

The highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people.

While no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts – and that is a very good thing.

The state is made for man, not man for the state. And in this respect science resembles the state.

Democracy is essentially a political system that recognizes the equality of humans before the law.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.

There is no such thing as slow freedom. Freedom is like a birth. Till we are fully free we are slaves.

I believe that only in that atmosphere of intellectual freedom can we solve the problems before us now.

The merits of democracy are negative: it does not insure good government, but it prevents certain evils.

It was not enough that India should get Swaraj. It was more important in whose hands the Swaraj would be.

The general limits of your freedom are merely these: that you do not trespass upon the equal rights of others.

I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason.

We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.

Democracies die not only when people are not free to talk but also when people are not willing or able to listen.

To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.

The free world knows, out of the bitter wisdom of experience, that vigilance and sacrifice are the price of liberty.

It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which two plus two will make five when the Leader says so.

Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom... Independence without freedom is worse than no independence.

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

We believe in the principle that governments are properly established only when it is with the consent of the governed.

Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man.

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of a great mind is agreeing in the opinions of small minds?

We live under majority rule and if that majority is not well educated in its responsibilities, the whole Nation suffers.

Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than starving the body.

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

When the Great Dao (Tao, perfect order) prevails, the world is like a Commonwealth State shared by all, not a dictatorship.

Strange incongruities must ever perplex those, who confound the unhappiness of civil dissensions with the crime of treason.

At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.

In the long run, the most important changes required to make globalization work are reforms to reduce the democratic deficit.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? (16 October 1939)

Votes should be weighed, not counted. Sooner or later, the state will be wrecked In which majority rules, and ignorance decides.

It is when the majorities are denied their right to participate in history as Subjects that they become dominated and alienated.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.

No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of its minorities.

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last.

Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people.

Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.

The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.

Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.

Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

There can be no freedom if one man or one group of men... is assumed... inherently perfect or perfectible. Its claim to perfection or perfectibility is a claim to absolute rule.

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A being that is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world.

Man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer: it is the noble People that makes the noble Government; rather than conversely.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

Since the value of freedom rests on the opportunities it provides for unforeseen and unpredictable actions, we will rarely know what we lose through a particular restriction of freedom.

None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events.

The need for government in these respects arises because absolute freedom is impossible. However attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it is not feasible in a world of imperfect men.

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?

This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

And most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yield and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all.

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

So civil society is the conscience of our countries. It’s the catalyst of change. It’s why strong nations don’t fear active citizens. Strong nations embrace and support and empower active citizens.

In these tumultuous times, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion is important, because a functioning democracy requires active citizen participation in setting social policy.

For a successful revolution, it is not enough that there is enough discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.

An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod.

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the Middle Ages. It was written in Magna Charta.

Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit … Life, liberty, and thought — three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing.

A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.

I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.

The basis of self-government and freedom requires the development of character and self-restraint and perseverance and the long view. And these are qualities which require many years of training and education.

I insist, that if there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.

We also know that populism can take dangerous turns -– from the extremism of those who would use democracy to deny minority rights, to the nationalism that left so many scars on this continent in the 20th century.

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

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. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person’s freedom.

I honor — we honor — the service of John McCain, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine. My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign.

Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.

In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

Democracy is a conversation. ...Imagine a large group of people... and... a group of robots... start talking... loudly.., emotionally and persuasively, and you can't tell who is a human... That is... what we are now living through.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. (1 July 1940)

Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

People have a tendency to blame politicians when things don't work, but as I always tell people, you get the politicians you deserve. And if you don't vote and you don't pay attention, you'll get policies that don't reflect your interest.

This is your government. It is quite different from its predecessors. Therefore, appreciate when a good thing is done. Certainly criticize fearlessly, when a wrong thing is done. I welcome criticism, but it must be honest and constructive.

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistenly over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above.

For me the only training in Swaraj we need is the ability to defend ourselves against the whole world and to live our natural life in perfect freedom, even though it may be full of defects. Good government is no substitute for self-government.

I believe that the majority of the plain people of the United States will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to govern them.

If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea...then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework.

Freedom is not an accident. Progress is not an accident. Democracy is not an accident. These are things that have to be fought for. You’re part of that legacy. They must be won. And they’ve got to be tended to constantly and defended without fail.

But the fact that we can stand here today, along the fault line where a city was divided, speaks to an eternal truth: No wall can stand against the yearning of justice, the yearnings for freedom, the yearnings for peace that burns in the human heart.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means, for the simple reason that the natural corollary to their use would be to remove all opposition through the suppression or extermination of the antagonists.

Our democracy is being born in pain. A political culture is emerging — one that presupposes debate and pluralism, but also legal order and, if democracy is to work, strong government authority based on one law for all. This process is gaining strength.

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.

Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations... In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.

The most hopeful sign is an awakening of strong public interest and concern. People are beginning to ask questions and to insist upon proper answers instead of meekly acquiescing in whatever spraying programs are proposed. This in itself is a wholesome thing.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people [the Filipinos] free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

Let us not be afraid to help each other — let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.

Our country—this great republic—means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.

People marched and demonstrated, and the Berlin Wall fell, and communism was ended. People marched and demonstrated, and apartheid ended. And democracy and freedom were born. And now people are marching, and people are demonstrating, because people are saying no to war!

Freedom of thought and of expression are not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the existence of individuals as developing careers in time. Their denial and abrogation is an abdication of individuality and a virtual rejection of time as opportunity.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fall: it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.

We believe in freedom with a passion that only those who have been denied it for so long can understand it, We believe in equality because so many in our nation have been denied for so long, we believe in human worth for that is the basis for all our current work in India.

Modern democracies have been around long enough for neoliberal capitalists to learn how to subvert them. They have mastered the technique of infiltrating the instruments of democracy—the 'independent' judiciary, the 'free' press, the parliament—and moulding them to their purpose.

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.

In my opinion, a society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. A society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but it will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed.

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

In a great national crisis like ours unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable — almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority simply because it is the will of the majority.

So those of us who believe in democracy, we need to speak out forcefully, because both the facts and history, I believe, are on our side. That doesn’t mean democracies are without flaws. It does mean that the cure for what ails our democracies is greater engagement by our citizens -- not less.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

If individual liberty goes, then surely all is lost, for, if the individual ceases to count, what is left of society? Individual freedom alone can make a man voluntarily surrender himself completely to the service of society. If it is wrested from him, he becomes automaton and society is ruined.

People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.

And finally, let’s remember that peace with justice depends on our ability to sustain both the security of our societies and the openness that defines them. Threats to freedom don’t merely come from the outside. They can emerge from within -- from our own fears, from the disengagement of our citizens.

The Head of the State in the British Constitution is a Monarch and the Crown descends according to the rules of heredity. In India the Head of the State is an elected President who holds office for a term and can be removed for misconduct in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Constitution.

Is the democratic form of government successful in all parts of India? But the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. There can be no democracy in India unless you erect a plurality of democratic structures to underpin democracy, like the village cooperative which is a people’s institution.

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation.

In a democratic republic, where the mass of the people of all parties have the same interest at stake, some respect must be had to the feelings and wishes of the minority, especially when that minority is large and clamorous; otherwise, it will be impossible to avoid discord, and discord weakens the bonds of union.

An individual may perceive a way of life, or a method of social organisation, by which more of the desires of mankind could be satisfied than under the existing method. If he perceives truly, and can persuade men to adopt his reform, he is justified. Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.

Democracy will win -- because a government’s legitimacy can only come from citizens; because in this age of information and empowerment, people want more control over their lives, not less; and because, more than any other form of government ever devised, only democracy, rooted in the sanctity of the individual, can deliver real progress.

Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.

Freedom and power bring responsibility.

If we are not free, no one will respect us.

It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

Liberty I will have, or die in the attempt to gain it.

Some of my best friends never agree with me politically.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

The bigger the crowd, the more negligible the individual.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth.

Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

The truth doesn't die. The desire for liberty cannot be fully suppressed.

It is not possible to make a person or society non-violent by compulsion.

Commerce unites men and make them; therefore it is fatal to despotic power.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

The colour of someone's skin should not determine his or her political rights.

My political ideal is Democratic ... Force always attracts men of low morality.

If the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.

The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life.

Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.

The free individual has been justified as his own master; the state as his servant.

We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

In limitations he first shows himself the master, And the law can only bring us freedom.

Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.

The stupendous Fourth Estate, whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take in?

Those who are led should not be driven, and they should be allowed to choose their leader.

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

One must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.

What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

You can't separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

Everything that liberates our mind without at the same time imparting self-control is pernicious.

The problem in this world is to avoid concentration of power - we must have a dispersion of power.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.

History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.

I am well aware, that men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told of their duty.

The public use of a man's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men...

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

Those who govern must see how the people react to administration. Ultimately, the people are the final arbiters.

I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.

To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

The true purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government.

We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.

You deal in the raw material of opinion, and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.

A free Press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.

Ultimately, what matters in determining the validity of a nation is the will of its inhabitants to live and strive together.

The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.

Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

The U.S. constitution originally... enabled slavery, but... had an amendment.., a self-correcting mechanism... to forbid slavery.

A dictatorship means muzzles all round and consequently stultification. Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.

You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth.

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

All government — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on compromise and barter.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

I hold that women, as well as men, have the right to vote, and my heart and my voice go with the movement to extend suffrage to woman.

Friends, I will disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such foul slander and abuse any opponent of any other party.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

I want to be very clear here -- a politics that’s based solely on tribe and ethnicity is a politics that's doomed to tear a country apart.

The essence of the modern state is the union of the universal with the full freedom of the particular, and with the welfare of individuals.

Citizenship demands a sense of common purpose; participation in the hard work of self-government; an obligation to serve to our communities.

Dear sisters and brothers, we realise the importance of light when we see darkness. We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced.

All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.

It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.

The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is not fit to rule another country must admit that a class is not fit to rule another class.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.

We have found, in our country, that when people have the right to make decisions as close to home as possible, they usually make the right decisions.

The thing that politicians are seemingly unable to understand is that you cannot produce a vigorous literature by terrorising everyone into conformity.

Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides.

Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope.

While, legally and constitutionally, speech may be free, the space in which that freedom can be exercised has been snatched from us and auctioned to the highest bidders.

With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

Exchange is truly voluntary only when nearly equivalent alternatives exist. Monopoly implies the absence of alternatives and thereby inhibits effective freedom of exchange.

In a free society, a government has no business using the power of the law or the taxpayer's money to propagandize for some views and to prevent the transmission of others.

Some part of life – perhaps the most important part – must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilization, shaped by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy.

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

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.

To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.

Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people—they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.

If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence.

It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.

England has done one thing; it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.

The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate.

The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

We want the kind of world in which greedy people can do the least harm to their fellow men. That’s the kind of world in which power is widely dispersed and each of us has as many alternatives as possible.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.

There is no fatality which forces the Old World towards new catastrophe. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. They have within themselves the power to become free at any moment.

Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage

It might be plausibly maintained, that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny ; flattery to treachery ; standing armies to arbitrary government ; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

Repression can only go up to a point. When it becomes too acute, the instruments of repression, namely the army and the police, have been proved time and time again in history to have turned their guns on their masters.

One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.

He who first shortened the labor of copyists by device of movable types was disbanding hired armies, and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating a whole new democratic world: he had invented the art of printing.

It is one of the strange ironies of history, that in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal, men are still arguing over whether the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character.

The so-called Facebook and Twitter revolutions in the Arab world started in hopeful online communities, but once they emerged into the messy offline world, they were commandeered by religious fanatics and military juntas.

Indians today are governed by different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the Preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.

Only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant, and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

I would throw out the old maxim, ‘My country, right or wrong,’ etc., and instead I would say, ‘My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.

You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of State.

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

The law books abound with similar instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity, Laws, moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.

The mechanism by which the interaction of democratic decisions and their implementation by the experts often produces results which nobody has desired is a subject which would deserve much more careful attention than it usually receives.

Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace.

The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise by those who want to use those to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished.

Self-government means continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is foreign government or whether it is national. Swaraj government will be a sorry affair if people look up for the regulation of every detail of life.

Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open.

The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

I believe that the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought, and thus upon freedom, and that it must come to an end if freedom is destroyed (though it may well continue for some time in some fields, especially in technology).

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor. Quite often it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, in unexpected ways. But judgements about that would have to be based on intimate knowledge of the society and its various strands.

Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.

I suggest that, if India is to evolve along nonviolent lines, it will have to decentralize many things. Centralization cannot be sustained and defended without adequate force . . .Centralization as a system is inconsistent with non-violent structure of society.

Now, I mentioned yesterday at the town hall -- like America’s first President, George Washington, he understood that democracy can only endure when it’s bigger than just one person. So his willingness to leave power was as profound as his ability to claim power.

The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man. It is more important that we be prepared for voting than that we vote, more important that we be prepared to hold office than that we hold office, more important that we be prepared for the highest recognition than that we be recognized.

They fought because they were paid for it; they were not interested very much in the conquest of Greece. The Athenians on the other hand, fought for their freedom. They preferred to die rather than lose their freedom, and those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated.

I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug, passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows, and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.

Ideas, like men, can become dictators. We Americans have so far escaped regimentation by our rulers, but have we escaped regimentation by our own ideas? I doubt if there exists today a more complete regimentation of the human mind than that accomplished by our self-imposed doctrine of ruthless utilitarianism.

There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. ... It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!