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.

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

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

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

In Nicaragua, liberty, equality and the rule of law were the stuff of dreams. But in Paris I discovered the value of those words.

We can afford no liberties with liberty itself.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.