Human Quotes

Life is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions toward us by an almost instinctive network of taboos.

~ Havelock Ellis

I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another all would be well with the world. This seemed simple and very nice but I found when I tried to put it in practice not only that other people were seldom lovable but that I was not very lovable myself.

~ George Bernard Shaw

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe with one trifling exception is composed of others.

~ John Andrew Holmes

Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.

~ Abraham J. Heschel

I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as self-governing people to hear everything relevant.

~ John F. Kennedy

Liberty is always unfinished business.

~ Anonymous

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

~ John Stuart Mill

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want...everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Yes 'n' how many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free? Yes. 'n' how many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see? The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind.

~ Bob Dylan

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.

~ Thomas Paine

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in cases involving not very nice people.

~ Felix Frankfurter

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

~ Learned Hand

Liberty is always dangerous - but it is the safest thing we have.

~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

Let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century tempered by war disciplined by a hard and bitter peace proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1 000 days nor in the life of this administration nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms though arms we need - not as a call to battle though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out rejoicing in hope patient in tribulation- a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny poverty disease and war itself. And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country . My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

~ John F. Kennedy

None can love freedom heartily but good men - the rest love not freedom but licence.

~ John Milton

One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to battle for freedom and truth.

~ Henrik Ibsen

I understand by 'freedom of spirit' something quite definite - the unconditional will to say No where it is dangerous to say No.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Man was born free and everywhere he is in shackles.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

~ George Bernard Shaw

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

~ Adlai Stevenson

For two decades the state has been taking liberties and these liberties were once ours.

~ E. P. Thompson

By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think wrong.

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

~ Eric Hoffer

Liberty as it is conceived by current opinion has nothing inherent about it it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behaviour.

~ Mary Mccarthy

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

~ Hubert Humphrey

If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.

~ Philip Wylie

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must like men undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

~ Thomas Paine

Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

~ John F. Kennedy

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Send these the homeless tempest toss'd to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

~ Emma Lazarus

To be truly free it takes more determination courage introspection and restraint than to be in shackles.

~ Pietro Bellusch

Equality of opportunity is an equal opportunity to prove unequal talents.

~ Viscount Samuel

The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.

~ Harry Weinberger

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way.

~ Viktor Frankl

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest no domination. We seek no indemnities for ourselves no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely give. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of nations can make them.

~ Woodrow Wilson

A free man is as jealous of his responsibilities as he is of his liberties.

~ Cyril James

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

~ Baron De Montesquieu

Once freedom lights its beacon in a man's heart the gods are powerless against him.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Equality is the result of human organization. We are not born equal.

~ Hannah Arendt