Free Society Quotes

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion. ~ Friedrich Hayek

For the next century, the Republicans have agreed that we will promote the dignity and future of every individual by building a free society under a limited, accountable government that protects liberty, security and prosperity for a brighter American dream. ~ Todd Tiahrt

The dream of a planned, fair, moral, ethical, cash-free society remains strong, particularly among socialists and liberals. It clearly represents a fundamental human instinct. But feudalism just did not work very well, if only because powerful people will not always obey moral imperatives. ~ Terence Kealey

Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter, ~ Joe Randazzo

I can think of few more worthy achievements than keeping a library alive and well for a century. As far as I am concerned, one of the absolute backbones of a free society and a democracy is the library offering access to a treasure house of information to all. ~ Gillian Roberts

And, impossible though it may be, we will have to resist partisanship. The only way back to a free society, to a country where no one need fear the president's wrath or impulses, is to unwind the factionalism that has helped destroy this country. We have to forge a new coalition on right and left to resist fascism's reach and cultic power. In a country which just elected and re-elected a black president - whose grace feels now almost painful to recall - it is surely possible. ~ Andrew Sullivan

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson II

Japan is a well-educated, technological society. It is a free society, protects intellectual property. ~ John Roos

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves. ~ Walter E. Williams

Part of living in a free society is accepting that no idea is beyond being challenged or ridiculed, and that nothing is more stifling to free expression than being afraid to upset or offend. ~ Jamie Bartlett

It is only within a free society that the crucial moral features of human life can be protected and preserved ~ Tibor R. Machan

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card. ~ Ron Paul

To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the enlightened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism, and materialism. We have not yet made peace with a land we took by force and have only partly paid for. We are a teeming conglomeration of people from different tribes who have yet to embrace fully the humanness in one another. And none of us can be really free until all of us are. ~ Robert Thurman

It may be that a free society ... carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

The preservation of our free society in the years and decades to come will depend ultimately on whether we succeed or fail in directing the enormous power of human knowledge to the enrichment of our own lives and the shaping of a rational and civilized world order ... It is the task of education, more than any other instrument of foreign policy to help close the dangerous gap between the economic and technological interdependence of the people of the world and their psychological, political and spiritual alienation. ~ J. William Fulbright

I have no doubt that given a real choice, the vast majority of Muslims and Arabs, like everyone else will choose a free society over a fear society. ~ Natan Sharansky

Religion, art, and science flourish best in a free society. True, freedom does not afford much opportunity for grand gestures. It has little room for martyrs. But life is not supposed to be about dying well. It is about living well. ~ Virginia Postrel

The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth. ~ Anthony Kennedy

But they have preserved an aspect of the American persona that is uniquely vital to the health of this republic. Among many other things, those dirtbag river runners uphold the virtue of disobedience: the principle that in a free society, defiance for its own sake sometimes carries value and meaning, if only because power in all of its forms - commercial, governmental, and moral - should not always and without question be handed what it demands. ~ Kevin Fedarko

As you have fewer and fewer voices in a democracy, in a free society, it's not good to limit the number of voices. ~ Michael Moore

I'm against ObamaCare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change ... I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering ... I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. ~ Newt Gingrich

If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in Islamic societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Freedom of speech doesn't apply only if you like the message; it applies to everyone. And if it is gone, so is a free society. ~ Pamela Geller

This bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life-neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, business spying on businessmen-were those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society. ~ Barry Goldwater

A free press is the greatest guarantee of a free society. We must keep it alive. We have to tolerate obnoxious opinions. But I don't want only opinions. I want facts. ~ Anthony S. Pitch

Wanting to leave communist Russia is all fine and well | Actually leaving the country is where you might run into a few setbacks. Obtaining a visa for a simple vacation outside the soviet block was a long and arduous process. To immigrate to a free society was about as easy as finding whiskey in a church. ~ Gary Govich

Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or instrument of government - but the reverse ... If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom ... ~ Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society. ~ Thomas Sowell

A free society, to be truly worthy of that name, owes healthy, competent individuals the right to end their lives on their own terms. ~ Jacob M. Appel

The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy. ~ Vartan Gregorian

We can't just have mainstream behavior on television in a free society, we have to make sure we see the whole panorama of human behavior. ~ Jerry Springer

Freedom is on the march in this world. I believe everybody in the Middle East desires to live in freedom. I believe women in the Middle East want to live in a free society. I believe mothers and fathers want to raise their children in a free and peaceful world. I believe all these things, because freedom is not America's gift to the world, freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world. ~ George W. Bush

A free society is regarded as one that does not engage, on principle, in attempting to control what people find meaningful, and a totalitarian society is regarded as one that does, on principle, attempt such control. ~ Michael Polanyi

Our great progressive struggles have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich and privileged, share in the benefits of a free society. ~ Bill Moyers

Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

One instance of this failure is the case of smoke, as well as air pollution generally. In so far as the outpouring of smoke by factories pollutes the air and damages the persons and property of others, it is an invasive act. It is equivalent to an act of vandalism and in a truly free society would have been punished after court action brought by the victims. Air pollution, then, is not an example of a defect in a system of absolute property rights, but of failure on the part of the government to preserve property rights. Note that the remedy, in a free society, is not the creation of an administrative State bureau to prescribe regulations for smoke control. The remedy is judicial action to punish and proscribe pollution damage to the person and property of others.48 In ~ Murray N. Rothbard

An anarchist society is by definition a Free Society, but a Free Society is not necessarily Anarchist. It might fall short in several respects. Some failings might seriously limit its desirability. For instance, a Revolution carried out by men in a male-dominated society, might perpetuate sex discrimination, which would limit freedom and undermine the Revolution by leaving it possible for aggressive attitudes to be fostered. The liberal illusion that repressive forces must be tolerated which will ultimately wipe out all freedom
lest the right to dissent be imperilled
could well destroy the revolution. ~ Albert Meltzer

A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand. ~ Clarence Thomas

In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are not only living off our assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment of their resources; we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying its freedom to the fullest. ~ J. William Fulbright

I meant that the Chinese people are not aware of their own entrapment. They believe they live in a free society, but don't realize how much they are being monitored and controlled, how much the information they receive is restricted and warped, until they step out of line, that is, and feel the heavy hand of the state fall on them. ~ Ma Jian

Now, it is sometimes said that medical care is too important to be left to the market, and that it is immoral to profit from the illnesses of others. I say medical care is too important to be left to the failed central plans of the political class. And as for profiting from providing medical care, we can never be reminded enough that in a free society, a profit is a signal that valuable services are being rendered to people on a voluntary basis. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell

Integrity is the fundamental premise for military service in a free society. Without integrity, the moral pillars of our military strength, public trust, and self-respect are lost. ~ Charles A. Gabriel

All liberty required was that the space for discourse itself be protected. Liberty lay in the argument itself, not the resolution of that argument, in the ability to quarrel, even with the most cherished beliefs of others; a free society was not placid but turbulent. The bazaar of conflicting was the place where freedom rang. ~ Salman Rushdie

It is necessary for the oppressors to approach the people in order, via subjugation, to keep them passive. This approximation, however, does not involve being with the people, or require true communication. It is accomplished by the oppressors' depositing myths indispensable to the preservation of the status quo: for example, the myth that the oppressive order is a "free society"; the myth that all persons are free to work where they wish, that if they don't like their boss they can leave him and look for another job; the myth that this order respects human rights and is therefore worthy of esteem; the myth that anyone who is industrious can become an entrepreneur--worse yet, the myth that the street vendor is as much an entrepreneur as the owner of a large factory; the myth of the universal right of education, when of all the Brazilian children who enter primary schools only a tiny fraction ever reach the university; the myth of the equality of all individuals, when the question: "Do you know who you're talking to?" is still current among us; the myth of the heroism of the oppressor classes as defenders of "Western Christian civilization" against "materialist barbarism"; the myth of the charity and generosity of the elites, when what they really do as a class is to foster selective "good deeds" (subsequently elaborated into the myth of "disinterested aid," which on the international level was severely criticized by Pope John XXIII); the myth that the dominant elites, "recogn ~ Paulo Freire

Violent ideologies speak their own language; core concepts are translated to maintain the system while appearing to support the people. Under carnism, for instance, democracy has become defined as having the freedom to choose among products that sicken our bodies and pollute our planet, rather than the freedom to eat our food and breathe our air without the risk of being poisoned. But violent ideologies are inherently undemocratic, as they rely on deception, secrecy, concentrated power, and coercion
all practices that are incompatible with a free society. While the larger system, or nation, may appear democratic, the violent system within it is not. This is one reason we don't recognize violent ideologies that exist within seemingly democratic systems; we simply aren't thinking to look for them. ~ Melanie Joy

The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other. ~ William E. Simon

Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society
once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer. ~ William O. Douglas

How could one want an equalitarian and free society to issue from an authoritarian organisation? It is impossible. ~ James Guillaume

If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage. ~ William J. Brennan

The future of private enterprise capitalism is also the future of a free society. There is no possibility of having a politically free society unless the major part of its economic resources are operated under a capitalistic private enterprise system. ~ Milton Friedman

A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. ~ Milton Friedman

In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you go against someone, you say, you can't vote for these Democrats, they don't have good values, they're not good people, they're weak, they're spineless, they're don't love America, they're giving aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein, that's the kind of thing I think is bad for America, because it stops the voters from thinking. And any time you stop thinking in a free society you get in trouble. ~ William J. Clinton

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

In a free society we're supposed to know the truth.. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.. This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this? ~ Ron Paul

I've always believed that conservatism is the politics of reality, and that reality ultimately asserts itself in a reasonably free society, in behalf of the conservative position. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required - not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. ~ John F. Kennedy

Because federal hate-crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society. ~ Ron Paul

The one important distinction between the two factors of production is that in a free society, ownership of the human factor, labor, cannot be concentrated while ownership of the non-human factor, capital, can be. ~ Louis O. Kelso

Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society. ~ Felix Frankfurter

What [he] is apparently objecting to is that not everyone takes his beliefs seriously. Indeed, some don't seem to respect his beliefs at all, and actually poke fun at them. Well, I have news for [him]: that's the nature of a free society. Opinions don't necessarily merit respect; they must earn respect in the marketplace of ideas. ~ Jeffrey Shallit

And as John F. Kennedy described the ideals behind what would become the Peace Corps, he issued a challenge to the students who had assembled in Ann Arbor on that October night: "on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country," he said, will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can," he said. ~ Barack Obama

This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person. ~ William O. Douglas

You can't talk about the environment, you can't talk about political correctness, affirmative action and all the other innumerable things that freedom is about, unless you have a free society based upon the integrity of the individual. If you have a responsible society, these other issues will not come up in a responsible society, and that is what freedom is all about. ~ Russell Means

Few policies are more calculated to destroy the existing basis of a free society than the debauching of its currency. And few tasks, if any, are more important to the champion of freedom than creation of a sound monetary system. ~ Hans F. Sennholz

During the interim, no matter how much agony the man may feel, he also experiences excitement, the excitement of learning how to cope with a closed society that reflects free society as a funhouse mirror reflects the human form: everything is there, but distorted. ~ Edward Bunker

The only way of living in a free society is to feel that you have the right to say and do stuff. ~ Salman Rushdie

The acceleration of contemporary life also plays a role in this lack of being. The society of laboring and achievement is not a free society. It generates new constraints. Ultimately, the dialectic of master and slave does not yield a society where everyone is free and capable of leisure, too. Rather, it leads to a society of work in which the master himself has become a laboring slave. In this society of compulsion, everyone carries a work camp inside. This labor camp is defined by the fact that one is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator. One exploits oneself. It means that exploitation is possible even without domination. ~ Byung-Chul Han

Political economy is the science of free society. Its theory and its history alike establish this position. Its fundamental maxims, Laissez-faire and 'Pas trop gouverner' are at war with all kinds of slavery, for they in fact assert that individuals and peoples prosper most when governed least. ~ George Fitzhugh

The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives, and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home. ~ Noam Chomsky

In a free society, every opportunity comes with three obligations. First, you must seize it. You must mold it into a work that brings value to others. Second, you must live it. Opportunity is nurtured only by action. Third, you must defend the freedom to pursue opportunities. You must embrace these three obligations as if the future of the United States depended on it. In fact, it does. ~ Roberto Goizueta

Human envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as 'the most anti-social and evil of all passions.' ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

The draft is a monstrous violation of individual liberty, and even a good motive cannot make it otherwise. In a free society no one should be compelled to take up arms, or be forced to kill or risk being killed ... But who can blame prospective volunteers from doubting that there is a threat from Iraq? The Bush administration has yet to make a persuasive argument to that effect. ~ Sheldon Richman

To continue on the road we Americans have traveled for the past century is ultimately to deliver ourselves completely into the hands of an unlimited government. We can have a free society or a welfare state. We cannot have both. ~ Robert Higgs

Confronted with such flagrant acts of intolerance - such abuses of the freedom of speech - a free society must surely do more. For intolerance is the one thing a free society cannot afford to tolerate. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In many schools, teachers have been told, falsely, that there is an "opportunity zone" in which a child's gender identification is malleable. They have used this zone to try to stamp out boyhood: banning same-sex play groups and birthday parties, forcing children to do gender-atypical activities, suspending boys who run during recess or play cops and robbers. In her book the War Against Boys, the philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers rightly calls this agenda "meddlesome, abusive and quite beyond what educators in a free society are mandated to do(172). ~ Steven Pinker

An armed society is a free society. ~ Howie Carr

A free society is one where it's safe to be unpopular, but then, freedom of speech also carries with it the freedom not to listen! ~ Ashwin Sanghi

Unfortunately, the truth is that in universities the world over, the tremendous analytical power and insights of market economics are unappreciated. For whatever political or ideological reasons, we have deprived generations of university students of a clear understanding of basic economic forces and their proper role in a free society. ~ HENRY MANNE

I'm embarrassed for us as a free society that we actually want people punished for saying things we don't like. ~ Jim Norton

All ideas in a truly free society should always be open for discussion. ~ Bryant McGill

The dream of true economic, gender and racial equality in a free society, which was cherished (if not achieved) by Leftists of the post-war generation, died under New Labour; but the egalitarianism at its heart was resurrected by a merciless minority as the brain-sucking zombie of Political Correctness. ~ Mark Crutchfield

Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed-and-breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn't want noisy children? Absolutely not. Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered. ~ Rand Paul

The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. - Edith Packer
When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny. ~ Thomas Paine

If you never encounter anything in your community that offends you, then you are not living in a free society. ~ Kim Campbell

The play of conflicting interests in a framework of shared purposes is the drama of a free society. It is a robust exercise, and often a noisy one. It is not for the faint-hearted, or the tidy-minded. ~ John W. Gardner

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society . ~ Eric Hoffer

Doctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer. ~ Ayn Rand

Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime. ~ Ayn Rand

Clearly we must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack, but we can and must do so in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society. We can do that without living in an Orwellian world where the government and private corporations know every telephone call that we make, every website we visit, every place we go. ~ Bernie Sanders

A reading society will triumph; a thinking society will triumph; a free society will triumph; an honest society will triumph and what about the rest? There is even no need to mention about them! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Americans and other Westerners who want their families to enjoy the blessings of life in a free society should understand that the life we've led since 1945 in the Western world is very rare in human history. Our children are unlikely to enjoy anything so placid, and may well spend their adult years in an ugly and savage world unless we decide that who and what we are is worth defending. ~ Mark Steyn

Anarcho-syndic alism took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations, and democracy of that kind should be the foundational elements of a more general free society. ~ Noam Chomsky

All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light. ~ Felix Frankfurter

I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizen's opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not calm and eventless place - that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate...and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve. ~ Salman Rushdie

The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified. ~ Ron Paul

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society. ~ Natan Sharansky

There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. ~ John F. Kennedy