John Milton Quotes

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Freedom cannot be given... It can only be taken away.

The strength of this nation is weakened more by those who suppress the freedom of others than by those who are allowed freely to think and act as their consciences dictate.

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.

Where is the man, who, if asked to become a slave, would not hurl back the offer indignantly in the teeth of the oppressor?

Where all your rights become only an accumulated wrong; where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labours...then surely it is a braver, a saner and a truer thing, to be a rebel in act and deed against such circumstances as these than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

We do not want the peace of slaves nor the peace of the grave.

Death is better than slavery.

I'm not interested in being commodified. I'm not into being sold. I'm not a slave.

It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you.

Even in the darkest regions, people have discovered their right of freedom.

Freedom is never easily won, but once established, freedom lasts, spreads and chokes out tyranny.

Listen, when you take my liberty away, you've taken away more-something more precious than life. I mean, what good is a life without liberty? Huh? None.

Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

When liberty returns, I will return.

If we are not represented, we are slaves.

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been.

No man is good enough to be another's master.

A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.