These individual liberty quotes will inspire you. Individual liberty, the liberty of those persons who are free from external restraint in the exercise of those rights which are considered to be outside the province of a government to control — compare civil liberty, political liberty.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging individual liberty quotes, individual liberty sayings, and individual liberty proverbs.
Best Individual Liberty Quotes
- “Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.” ~ Calvin Coolidge
- “‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
- “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 of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
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“There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.” ~ Ron Paul
- “Law is often the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” ~ Desmond Tutu
- “Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind.” ~ Henry Grady Weaver
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“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government … Unfortunately … that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives … Today, it is the government that is free – free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter … that is not subject to legislation.” ~ Harry Browne , Personal individual liberty quotes
- “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
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“Individual liberty is individual power.” ~ John Quincy Adams
- “The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals … it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government … it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “A society that does not recognise 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.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
- “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” ~ Albert Einstein
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“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” ~ H. L. Mencken
- “Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.” ~ Samuel Adams
- “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.” ~ P. J. O’Rourke
- “Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.” ~ John Quincy Adams
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“The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.” ~ Robert Kennedy
- “While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.” ~ Charles Evans Hughes
- “Since there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.” ~ Mikhail Bakunin
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“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” ~ Patrick Henry
- “The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals… It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.” ~ Albert Gallatin
- “I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “Liberty, then, is the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL.” ~ Josiah Warren
- “Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.” ~ Adam Smith
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“I have sworn upon the altar of god.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.” ~ John Maynard Keynes
- “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” ~ Patrick Henry
- “I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
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“We believe, as our founders did, that ‘the pursuit of happiness’ depends upon individual liberty; and individual liberty requires limited government.” ~ Paul Ryan
- “At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further encroachments on individual liberty, those who cherish freedom are likely to expend their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same side as those who habitually resist change.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
- “Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.” ~ Mikhail Bakunin
- “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
- “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.” ~ John Quincy Adams
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“Liberty is a political firewall that limits the damage government can do to the individual.” ~ James Bovard
- “What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
- “All initiation of force is a violation of someone else’s rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it’s supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.” ~ Ron Paul
- “Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” ~ Plato
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“A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort … is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.” ~ Adam Smith
- “In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.” ~ Will Durant
- “The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.” ~ William O. Douglas
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“Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives – and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland.” ~ Harry Browne
- “Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the marketplace.” ~ Milton Friedman
- “The more the state “plans” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” ~ Friedrich August von Hayek
- “The government’s only proper job is to protect individual rights against violence by force or fraud … to protect men from foreign invaders … to settle disputes among men according to objective laws … The greatness of the Founding Fathers was how well they understood this issue and how close some of them came to understanding it perfectly.” ~ Ayn Rand
- “The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.” ~ Ron Paul
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“Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.” ~ Tom G. Palmer
- “If technology has finally caught up with individual liberty, why would anyone who loves freedom want to rethink that?” ~ Matt Drudge
- “This election presents a stark choice – we can continue down the road of the Obama Democrats, more and more spending, debt and government control of the economy, or we can return to the founding principles of our nation – free markets, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.” ~ Ted Cruz
- “I think the first and principle objective is to repeal Obamacare before it does lasting, fundamental damage to our health care system, to our individual liberty, to the relationship each of us has with his or her doctor.” ~ Ted Cruz
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“Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press.” ~ Dennis Prager
- “The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.” ~ Arthur Keith
- “So what is so strange about saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to reconstruct and reform this nation so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
- “Liberalism, communism, socialism are about denying individual liberty and creating a collective with a top-down command-and-control government and economy. Conservatives are individuals and not activists at all, and so there is no such strategy to bend, shape, and form a country.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
- “Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.” ~ Ronald Reagan
- “The State calls its own violence, law; but that of the individual, crime.” ~ Max Stirner
