Speaking Freely #45

Quotes on Rights and Freedom

𝐋𝐮𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐠 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 • 𝟏𝟖𝟖𝟏 — 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟑
“The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion. It is not the struggle of the many against the few but of minorities — sometimes of a minority of but one man — against the majority.”

Adlai E. Stevenson • 1900—1965
“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”

Dwight Eisenhower • 1890 –1969
“We know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.”

Hannah Arendt • 1906–1975
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd…”

Alan Paton • 1903–1988
“Man was not created to go down on his belly before the state.”

Frank Zappa • 1940–1993
“The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.”

Edwin L. Godkin • 1831–1902
“In opposition to the theory of divine right, whether of kings or demagogues, the doctrine of natural rights was set up. Humanity was exalted above human institutions, man was held superior to the State, and universal brotherhood supplanted the ideals of national power and glory.”

Jimmy Carter • 1924 —
“America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.”

Officer John Nolan • “The Rookie” S4E8
“There are always people in society who feel like they are on the outside; some are easily manipulated; some are so desperate to find a purpose that they allow themselves to be infected with the most absurd of beliefs.”

Rod Serling • 1924–1975
“Being like everybody is the same as being nobody.”

H.L. Mencken • 1880–1956
“The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.”

George Orwell • 1903–1950
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

Simone de Beauvoir • 1908–1986
“No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.”

Elton John • 1947—
“All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together. Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world.”

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐫 • 𝟏𝟗𝟓𝟒 —
“There are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.”

James Buchanan • 1919–2013
“Man does not want liberty in order to maximize his utility, or that of the society of which he is a part. He wants liberty to become the man he wants to become.”

Harvey Milk • 1930–1978
“‘All men are created equal.’ No matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.”

Scandal at Scourie • Walter Pidgeon • 1953
“There is no fool so idiotic that other fools will not listen to him.”

Isaiah Berlin • 1909–1997
“All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.”

William Ernest Henley • 1849–1903
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

Patrick Henry • 1736–1799
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

Sandra Day O’Connor • 1930–2023
“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”

Judge Robert McBurney •
“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property, the disposition of which is decided by majority vote.”

Terry Pratchett • 1948—2015
“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Adam Ferguson • 1723–1816
“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”

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