"Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative authority vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man."

      John Locke, SECOND TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT (1690).

"Those who would give up liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

      Benjamin Franklin, Speech, Pennsylvania Assembly (1755)

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

      Thomas Jefferson, SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH
            AMERICA (1775).

"The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

      John Philpot Curran, Speech (1790).

"Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subject of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."

      Abraham Lincoln, Speech, Edwardsville, Illinois (1858).

"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

      Clarence Darrow, Argument of the Defense, PEOPLE V. LLOYD
            (1920).

"I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so long as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights."

      Abraham Lincoln, Speech, Chicago, Illinois (1858).

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."

      John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY (1859).

"Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed."

      Edmund Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777).

"The Liberty of the individual must be thus far limited: he must not make himself a nuissance to other people."

      John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY (1859).

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man is falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."

      Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Majority Opinion, SCHENCK
            V. UNITED STATES (1919).

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as liberty without freedom of speech.

      Benjamin Franklin, DOGOOD PAPERS (1722).

      James Fenimore Cooper, THE AMERICAN DEMOCRAT (1838).

"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called."

      John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY (1859).

"A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop. When does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality."

      John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY (1859).

"If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?"

      Herbert Spencer, "The New Toryism" (1884).

"In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority."

      Walter Lippman, "The Indispensable Opposition," ATLANTIC
            MONTHLY (1939).

Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with tooth-brush moustache and swastika armband--it creeps up insidiously ... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it [freedom] is gone."

      Baron Lane. (1990).

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well- meaning but without understanding."

      Louis D. Brandeis, Dissenting Opinion, OLMSTEAD V. UNITED
            STATES, U.S. Supreme Court (1928).

"Political freedom exists only upon that wise and tolerant middle ground where men do not treat other men as brutes because they know that they themselves are not gods."

      Harry V. Jaffa, "On the Nature of Civil and Religious
            Liberty," in THE CONSERVATIVE PAPERS (Doubleday,
            1964).

"In a free society the state [government] does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs."

      Walter Lippmann, THE GOOD SOCIETY (1937).